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EMS Insights from VFIS: 7 Ways to Engage the Student & Train the Mind
Content sponsored by VFIS, the largest provider of insurance, education and consulting services to emergency service organizations such as fire departments, ambulance and rescue squads.
Every year, more than 100,000 injuries and over 100 deaths occur to emergency responders (both fire and EMS personnel) during training or on actual emergency calls.1 For emergency service organizations (ESOs), one solution to this devastating problem is quality education and training.
Today’s classroom looks slightly different than it may have when our predecessors sat behind the desks. Many instructors now enter their classrooms to find students on their cell phones, dozing off in the corner or staring out the window. When critical topics are being discussed, how can you best ensure that all students stay engaged?
Many of us began EMS training programs in an instructor-centered environment; however, just like the technology we use on scene has changed, the way we educate our members is also evolving. At one point in time, it may have been acceptable to instruct using a 50-slide presentation filled with information that was simply read word-by-word. Today, with faster-paced lives and shortening attention spans, things call for a more student-centered approach. Teaching from this perspective can help drive engagement and ultimately better train our new and current members.
Imagine if you prepared training and education courses that were tailored toward your students’ backgrounds, capabilities and needs. There is power behind designing lesson plans that focus on the real world and occupational experiences of your adult students through interactive participation. For example, when teaching a class on blood-borne pathogens, rather than flipping through a slideshow, your lesson plan could include:
1. Role Playing—Provide the students with predeveloped scripts. One student can represent a supervisor who is coaching another student as a paramedic on a recent bloodborne pathogen close-call. Afterwards, have an open discussion with the class to ask what they learned from the real-life scenario.
2. Guided Discovery—Cultivate a brainstorming session to discuss how people might become exposed to blood-borne pathogens. Work with students to list potential causes of such incidents, and guide them through understanding root causes.
3. Panel Discussion—Host experts, such as infection control personnel from local hospitals and EMS agencies. Ask them to identify specific experiences where they have personally encountered patients with blood-borne pathogens and to discuss how they responded to those situations.
4. Simulation—Create an active scenario that simulates an emergency scene where an exposure occurs due to careless, unexpected events or protocol violations and allow students to demonstrate the next steps and to explain how the situation could have been prevented.
5. Small Group Dialogue/Problem Solving—Break the class into small groups to discuss what changes in PPE have occurred over the past 20 years and how they impact job performance today.
6. Problem Identification—Remember those distracted students with their cell phones? One way to incorporate mobile phone technology is to challenge students to use them for educational purposes during trainings. For example, instruct your students to search incidents that involve bloodborne pathogen exposures and to report back on the interesting information they find, including how many “hits” they received during their search. Rather than demanding that students turn off their devices, embrace the popularity of this technology and look for ways to incorporate it into your lessons.
7. Educational Videos—Quality educational videos can capture students’ attention and teach them new things. Although the ever-popular Ted-Talks2 videos don’t typically cover fire and EMS topics directly, there are many indirect topics, as well as other video resources online. Spend time searching for and previewing what’s available on the topics you are discussing, and pull the best of those offerings into the classroom to engage your students in a new and powerful way.
Whether you’re teaching a class on bloodborne pathogens, emergency vehicle driving or financial management, these methods of education can be applied to your classroom strategy.
Today’s classroom participants deserve and expect a student-centered teaching approach that builds on their experience and professional needs. Exploring creative activities and engaging, active lessons that differ from the standard lecture or slideshow can encourage active engagement, help students expand their knowledge and better prepare them for serious real-world situations that they may soon face.
References
1. Association for the Advancement of Automotive Medicine. Analysis of Firetruck Crashes and Associated Firefighter Injuries in the United States.
Don Cox is a retired fire chief and paramedic who has served in the fire service in Florida, Wisconsin and Iowa. He earned a Master’s Degree in Adult Education, holds the Chief Fire Officer and Chief Training Officer designations, National Fire Academy Executive Fire Officer, and is currently an Education Specialist for VFIS.
