Thanks so much, y'all!
@Ldadams426622
Xpole's instructor program has a fantastic reputation, but I haven't done it myself. I ended up with Spin City because they had an online option and travel expenses really limited what training program I could do.
My rundown of SC online:
What I liked:
1. Demo videos of each move, as well as video slide shows
2. Handbook is pretty well written
What I hope they change:
1. They tell you to take charge of your own education - ok, fine. But when you're assigned a mentor, you'd think they would occasionally check on you to see if/how you're progressing. All of my correspondence was because *I* initiated contact. This just hasn't sat right with me since one of the biggest points they stress in text is to check in with your students to make sure they understand.
2. Some of the criteria had conflicting or unclear descriptions that took me a few rounds of emails to get clarified.
Other things to keep in mind:
1. You NEED to have access to some kind of studio setting to take your practical assessment, which for me was recording a video of me teaching a class. I feel they did not make this explicit in the beginning (like before buying the course), and could have made my certification very difficult. Maybe they thought this was a given, but you know what they say about making assumptions.
2. My course was dated 2015, so some of my points might have been addressed in 2016 or 2017 versions.
If you're pretty good with independent study and can organize tasks on your own, you should be fine. I spent LOTS of time going over each video, each page of the handbook, and was really thorough in studying. I like that it was at-your-own-pace, since I had a lot of life stuff happen this year that made my study time take a few months longer than it could have been.
I still have my eye on getting certified by elevatED someday, as that has some of the best reviews of all the different programs I looked at. They also have a pretty good social media presence, so you can get a feel for how their courses might be by looking through their posts.
Overall, Spin City is pretty good and I'll probably also get my Intermediate certification through them, in time.
