You Didn’t Teach Me ‘That’

“Sit”, I said, but instead he looked at me quizzically, his head tipping side to side, ears flopping gracefully. Fido was obviously considering my request – formulating a judgment.

“Should I sit, why would I want to, what are the consequences of sitting, of not sitting, what is her intent and why now, why me, what are her motives and what would be the worst that would happen should I decide not to sit?”

He sat. 

It was a proud moment when I realized Fido had formulated an opinion after consideration or deliberation because Fido had the mental ability to perceive and distinguish relationships and the capacity to form an opinion by distinguishing and evaluating and moreover the capacity to assess situations or circumstances and draw sound conclusions; and finally use good judgment!

Good dog! 

Do you ever wonder why a trainee can understand and perform perfectly in training, and when they get out on their own, freezes, makes poor decisions, or falls apart. What happened? 

Next Generation Trainees must be able to develop (like Fido) the “mental ability to perceive and distinguish relationships, and the capacity to form an opinion by distinguishing and evaluating, and moreover the capacity to assess situations or circumstances, and draw sound conclusions; and finally use good judgment!  

Whew! Sounds daunting but you do it every time you pick up a 911 call or work the radio. When in your training do you ask trainees to actually do these things – think. This, wonderful trainers, is only achieved by presenting your wanna-be call takers with a large variety of 9-1-1 calls and asking THEM to evaluate the call followed by your expert ‘thinking’.  Training the learner to use the mastery ‘tools’ you use everyday to learn to ‘think’ like you. 

Learning methods

That’s Not My Style

There is only one training style that is needed, and that is an effective one. Trainers need not adhere to their most comfortable way of relating information; in fact, to do so would be out of order. A communications center trainer’s ‘charge’ is to deliver the information in any manner that can be absorbed. Many of our trainers feel they are unable to be creative or diverse in their approach to information delivery. We need to train in the most effective way and the most effective way is to offer a variety of ways. Trainers must be afforded access to a wide range of training methods.

A benefit of offering a variety of learning methods is that training programs can be designed to take the responsibility for learning off the trainer and place it where it belongs, with the trainee. The concept is simple; the trainer provides many learning methods — the learner is responsible for letting the trainer know what works them. When we begin to ask the trainee what they prefer, we begin to honor adult learning theory that says quite simply, we do indeed have different stripes, but we aren’t locked into a perception of what works or what is necessary in training.

And The Point Is?

The word learning assumes there is something going on up in the brain area.  That there is information input and that that information formulates into some understanding that hopefully ends up coming out through appropriate decisions and actions. Since we all have different ways of perceiving information, how can a trainer be sure that their way of offering information is getting through to the learner?

One way is by testing— but be careful, some ‘types’ of learners can shut down if evaluated too often. So how can you know? We have a great idea – ask the trainee if they are learning!

There is one very good training tool that fits any learning or training style: it’s called communication. Instead of the trainer filling out Daily Observation Report (DOR), ask the trainee if they are learning.  Ask them to fill out their own Daily Observation Report. Taking the time to assimilate the huge amount of information and activity around them is necessary for learning to ‘think.’  You may want to create a form with questions such as: what did they learn, what did they hear, what did they feel, what do they still need to know? 

It’s funny that although learning is a very private process, we assume to know what someone has learned because we gave him or her the information. Yes, we are all different, but the one thing we have in common is that although we may not know if we are concrete or abstract, we know what we know and, we know what we don’t know – but generally nobody asks us that question.

Critical Thinking

Training for the 3 Ring Circus

A trained pony is not memorizing a right turn and a left turn, or considering if this move will result in a figure eight. The pony is reacting to the way the whip is pointing, he is in the moment. A critical thinker is in this moment, and other moments; the future and the past moments and even moments they have never experienced. The critical thinker looks at the whip and decides if what the whip is indicating is truly the right direction to accomplish the desired goal – or not. Therefore the thinking must fully understand the desired goal first and foremost. For the accomplished critical thinker, there is no compulsion to agree with the whip simply because it is expected, or may result in punishment.

A critical thinker is always striving to make the right decision. And when they make an error in thinking, they think about their thinking. This thinking is not ‘disapproval’ of their own thinking but remedial or curative goals. And then, they add this corrective thinking about what happened, what should have been different to their arsenal of thinking tools. “Hmmm, to accomplish that I could have done this or that instead.” Of course in the 9-1-1 setting we certainly would prefer those errors in thinking to occur before they are on their own on the console!

A trainee can only learn critical thinking in a situation where the trainee doesn’t have someone point the whip. If someone tells you what to do, you don’t need to think at all, you only need to react to the whip! It is so much easier to be a trained pony. The danger of using the whip in Emergency Communications is that we cannot possibly recreate every configuration for the trainee. They cannot learn to PERFORM every act; they must learn to THINK their way through on their own. Therefore they must learn to think like the trainer. How does a trainer accomplish training people to think like them, or use critical thinking?

A Wikipedia definition of critical thinking


Critical thinking is the purposeful and reflective judgment about what to believe or what to do in response to observations, experience, verbal or written expressions, or arguments. Critical thinking involves determining the meaning and significance of what is observed or expressed, or, concerning a given inference or argument, determining whether there is adequate justification to accept the conclusion as true. The careful, deliberate determination of whether one should accept, reject, or suspend judgment about a claim and the degree of confidence with which one accepts or rejects it.

1 In a summary of a draft statement for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking the authors state, Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action.

Critical Thinking in Emergency Communications


Critical Thinking definitions never address those decisions that must be made in seconds and involve life and death. In fact, the definitions seem to indicate the critical thinker takes time to think things through. Emergency Communications decisions have to do with data, information, assumption, interpretation, concepts, implications, points of view, clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, breadth, and logical-ness. Astonishingly, also immediately and never with the same exact set of circumstances in the previous decision or judgment.
For a trainee to begin using critical thinking they must be given the opportunity to begin to use the process of examining their own reasoning: looking at purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, empirical grounding; reasoning leading to conclusions, implications and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference. And all at the speed of light without knowing they are doing it. How do trainers accomplish this seemingly daunting goal?

Step One: Define the Goal


Ask the trainees to clearly define what success is in Call Taking or Dispatching. What is the promise of 9-1-1? Why does 9-1-1 exist, its purpose? Generally the answer is something like to serve and protect – not good enough. Serve who, protect against what? How about to send? Send who, where, when, how?
Teaching Critical Thinking involves a process of facilitating thinking. You cannot accomplish this by telling the trainee the answer to your questions. Trainers must painstakingly extract whatever is up there in the trainee’s head about the work. Some thinking will be right on, some will be misdirected. Some a vast black hole of nothing in which case Trainers can then fill in the ‘blanks’. Trainees may come up with something like this.

1. Send the right number and type of units (police, fire or EMS? Combined, support)
2. To the correct location – with zero delay.
3. With the right amount of information so that they know what they are facing.
4. While keeping caller or those at the scene and responders safe
5. Accurately record the information and times on the call in some manner.

Step Two: Match the Goal to the Actual Work

1 Summary of a draft statement by Michael Scriven and Richard Paul for the National Council for Excellence in Critical Thinking.

Once you have the ‘perfect outcome’ defined the trainee must be given the opportunity view the work being done in order to look at purpose, problem, or question-at-issue, assumptions, concepts, reasoning leading to conclusions, implications and consequences, objections from alternative viewpoints, and frame of reference. Simply stated they must work with a large variety of calls to determine if the ‘promise’ was kept in all regards. Did the Call Taker accomplish #4, if not what was missing and why? The call taking, dispatching example as well as the CAD print out can be offered this analysis to be complete and properly affect the reasoning of the trainee(s). Best accomplished in groups, these critical thinking exercises welcome disagreement, challenge, confusion, questions, assumptions and inaccurate interpretations of the work of the Call Taker or Dispatcher.

Step Three: Create A Safe Learning Environment


Critical does not mean only finding errors in the work but also encouraging the trainee to detect practices or methods that worked well to accomplish the goal. After analyzing call after call, the trainee begins to have a reservoir of experiences to recall for what works. After meticulously analyzing five calls where the REASSURE call was not used and five calls where reassure calmed the caller, the trainee can then enlist this into their ‘experiences’.
This type of critical thinking training is aimed at creating a ‘truth-seeker’ and therefore must be a safe environment to be wrong. Wrong is welcomed as it allows the trainer to correct, reframe, redirect and explain – modeling the desired thinking process. If not asked, the trainee cannot reveal what they do not know, or what incorrect perceptions they hold. If you want to know how they think, you must allow them to think in front of you safely.

Step Four: Put Thinking Into Action


To know how accurate a rookie officer shoots you must take them to the range. If they don’t hit the target they will need correction and more practice. To know if a Call Taker trainee has developed the ability to use good judgments you must give them opportunities to use judgment in critical situations. In order to correct poor judgment you can work with the trainees work example, encouraging self assessment in order to extrapolate, isolate and identify the good the bad and the ugly with them. This process offers the trainee to ‘practice’ thinking in simulation, self evaluate, get feedback and next recreate the exact same call with better aim. Practice, evaluate, feedback, recreate, practice, evaluate, feedback, recreate, and practice to the eventual goal of transforming understanding into behavior.

Conclusion


Look around the workplace and try to notice some object you have never seen but has been there all the time. Then begin to get curious about things that seem to bother you.

Ask yourself why is this like this, how did it get this way and what have I tried to do about it? Find someone or something that has been playing negative on your mind. Ask yourself to think differently about this situation or that person. Challenge the authority of your own thinking. Critical thinking doesn’t only apply to the work; it can apply to the workplace. Trainers can use the process above to encourage critical thinking differently about those challenges that seem to be never ending; gossip, social immaturity, negative behaviors, de-valuing one another. Not only trainees could benefit from a dose of critical thinking in these areas.

The work of the Emergency Communications Trainer is to provoke thinking. Adult learners actually do have thoughts when they enter the profession. What are these thoughts and will they lead to success, lead them to good judgment, proper decisions, correct actions? In not knowing what a trainee is thinking lays a potential for trouble if the trainee has been treated as a trained pony following the whip instead of their own experiences. Experience is the key to developing a trained mind. After all the Telecommunicator has only their voice, head and heart to accomplish success in the work. This success can come in many forms long before the person answers that first call. What we don’t want in our training is to create a one trick pony for a three ring circus.

Dispatch simulator training

Why Simulation Training?

Our simulators were developed with the newcomer in mind. They are built with a generic CAD system that allows trainees an opportunity to develop their skillset using real life scenarios without the risk to the public and emergency personnel.

Our simulators provide an opportunity for learners to establish and develop a workflow through a simulated call taking process, using a generic CAD. Each call generates a report with time stamps and an audio recording.  It is a great assessment tool.  You can also dispatch calls, too. If you want a trainee to go through the whole call taking process and see it through to dispatching the appropriate units, adding units, status changes and closing the call etc. This can be helpful in making a call receiver an even better call receiver. Sometimes seeing the big picture can help provide a better understanding of why it is critical that we ask the specific questions we do, in the order in which we do.

The simulators are a one-time cost and do not require annual fees. They are plug and teach, customizable and come with a one-year equipment warranty and a lifetime software warranty.

9-1-1 dispatchers that train on the simulators are better prepared for the complexity of agency specific CAD systems.  We are confident that our simulators will improve your training program. Get ‘floor ready’ with our 9-1-1 Reality Simulators!

Dispatchers Continue to Work To Exhaustion

Unfortunately, hiring and retention challenges continue to plague 9-1-1 centers nationwide. Due to ongoing staffing shortages, and mandatory overtime, the burn out rates are exceptionally high. There is a lot of effort put into hiring and training but it doesn’t seem to be working. What if there is another way?

We believe that it is imperative that 9-1-1 agencies start working with high schools and colleges in their area to partner in offering pre-employment courses for a career in 9-1-1.

Students that complete/graduate from a 9-1-1 career course walk away with a better understanding of what it entails to be in the profession. Of course, it is rewarding, but it also comes with it’s challenges. Let’s not forget – there is a lot to learn and it is a very fast paced working environment. No day is the same. Lives are at stake. Do they really have what it takes?

9-1-1 communications centers would absolutely benefit from 9-1-1 career course graduates! Aside from vastly improving the candidate pool, hiring course graduates would lessen training time, reduce training cost and improve retention rates.

Invisible Tools Of The Trade

DOWNLOAD THIS NEWSLETTER

Emergency Communications is one of the most misunderstood,  underrated yet fascinating professions in today’s complex world.  What I mean by underrated here is in terms of training hours.  How many hours to train an EMT, a police officer, a firefighter.  I know in college courses many times it is assumed 40 hours is enough to get ‘certified’.  Or even 200 hours?  How about the exact same as police, fire or EMT.  We have 10 areas of study that must be mastered for the what I KNOW.  Next what SKILL as in what can I do with CAD, protocols, voice, tone, speed, attitude, maturity, ability to adjust to the changing circumstances.  Yes, our training in underrated in terms of time and funding for that time for training, evaluating and training trainers (and supervisors and in service).  Often a new CAD or radio system is under funding in training, then when confusion happens … back to retraining.

Pause for a moment to consider the perplexity of the work: answering calls from those in need of emergency services, gathering critical information in minutes, and mobilizing any number of available responders — and sustaining the responders and citizens as a safety net. What incredible work this is!  We have many many training TOOLS that expand, enhance and assist the trainer in their own mastery.

HOW DO THEY DO THAT – THOSE THAT CAN – WITH MASTERY?  Find out NOW.

Adult Learning In This Crazy Setting

12 Provocations

 

This issue is dedicated to discussing the fine points of adult learning theory and how it relates to the Comm Center setting. What do we do that works, what do we do that does not mesh with current adult learning theory? How can we bring the blurry concepts (that most trainers feel from their finer senses) into focus in very real and practical ways. These 12 are meant to PROVOKE thought!

A New Career For 911 Trainers

It was very difficult leaving my Comm Center for a full time teaching career at Renton Tech.  Weekends and summers off, great pay and a room full of people so excited about a new career in 911 just hanging on every word.  Working in a vocational college was amazing too, the teachers were from all fields.  I also enjoyed being the union president of the teachers association.  The best part – I was able to use my amazing profession in 9-1-1 to help others enter a GREAT career.  They say you learn when you teach and for sure!  My 11 years at the VoTech teaching people 911 was so very rewarding. If you haven’t contacted your local High School or Vo Tech – do this today and maybe it will change your life too – they hire teachers from this industry!  Read below a teacher about one of her students and the certificate she is talking about is the NECC certification.  We have a turnkey, plug and teach program waiting for YOU to go to your local college or high school and offer your knowledge, experience and love for this work.

Hi Donna, Thanks for forwarding her scores.  Great she scored amazing!!! She is a great student and will do well! Her typing speed like 60 wpm and she is personable, smart, efficient and this list goes on. Thank you for your assistance in this endeavor!!! You’re the greatest!

Oh yea, she said that it was easy because she was prepared….I was the one nervous! Lol  And I’m looking forward to our certificates!!! YAAAAY  

http://www.911CareerTraining.com

Everything a school needs is on this website.  They can have a turnkey program through a Perkins Grant and start training your next generation trainees for you – on their dime and their time.

 

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