Initial offering of a radical change to course delivery by the Justice Institute's Fire and Safety Division.

Initial offering of a radical change to course delivery by the Justice Institute's Fire and Safety Division.

British Columbia Firefighter Training Officer's Assoc. (BCFTOA) 

2017 Conference

Problem: 

• The standards organization that accredits this training, required skills assessment for certification. 
• The existing course was delivered over 2 days. 
• Extending the length of the course to include the skills assessment would have made the course twice as long, which would have created a buy-in challenge. 
• The price would have increased significantly, which would have created a marketing challenge.

Solution: 

• Created a series of 14 interactive online (Storyline) modules, complete with formative assessments to deliver the knowledge component of the course. 
• Discussion boards were created for students to share their experience related to the 14 topic areas. 
• The 2 day face-to-face was then freed-up to provide instructors and students to further interact and share their knowledge. 
• Three scenario based online modules were developed to simulate incidents that had been reported on by the National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH), to assess students practical skills.

This is the computer-based skills assessment that we developed. It took less than an hour to deliver, which in part, translates into a savings of about 16-19 hours of classroom time over the traditional delivery model. Feedback on this approach from all stakeholders has been resoundingly positive across the board, and adoption has been swift.

This is an example of how skills assessment has traditionally done. This method would take 1 hour per student and often span over 2 days per course.

This is an example of a carousel activity that allows students to become experts and teach each other. 

Notice that there are no students working from computers at this stage of the blended delivery.

This is an example of the computer-based skills assessment in progress, which has been based on a NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation Report. Ear buds are delivering the simulated radio traffic from the incident, the script for the audio is on the left of the screen and the animated gif in the centre of the screen is simulating the fire conditions.

NIOSH Fire Fighter Fatality Investigation Report

Command boards offer more detail on the incident, as an Incident Safety Officer (ISO) would be using on the fire scene in collaboration with the Incident Commander. Feedback on this approach from all stakeholders has been resoundingly  positive across the board. Adoption has been swift, with plans to apply it to all skills assessment going forward.

I was there to educate the instructors and provide technical support during this delivery to the fire service training officers from throughout the province of British Columbia.

Elements of the design:

1. Storytelling: students and instructors shared their stories online and in the classroom, thereby personalizing the content and making it relate-able to their fire service experience.
2. Reflection: students built the capacity for the facilitation of plan changes through the skills assessment scenarios that had time pressure and an emotional impact on them, as at least one  firefighter dies in each of these scenarios.
3. Cognitive Apprenticeship: students use the tools, systems and strategies they will be using at the incidents they attend as part of the fire service in a high intensity setting.
4. Repeated Practice: several opportunities for practice are provided for within the FTF sessions.
5. Articulation of Learning: students take turns teaching each other in the carousel activity and then present what they have learned to the class. This allows students to see how they create knowledge, reason and solve problems for themselves and others, offering them an opportunity to become more familiar with their thinking process.