Knowing the "How & Why"

If you’ve heard me teach a session on training you’ve probably heard me refer to a lot of dispatch training as “hand-me-down” training, meaning I train this way because I was trained this way and my trainer was trained this way. This isn’t to say that it’s unsuccessful training. Quite the contrary. Many centers have found effective ways to train and develop their talent to be successful emergency communications professionals. What this type of training does usually mean though, is that even with successful practices, individual trainers aren’t able to articulate why it’s a successful practice or how it aligns with how we learn.

You may be thinking, “If it works why does it matter if they know?”.

I am so glad you asked! One of the things I see time and time again on discussion boards, in Facebook groups, and in conference conversations is requests for insight on how to help a trainee who struggles with "XYZ" or the “normal methods” of training don’t seem to work for them. No two trainees are alike and no matter how great the approach or activities are, they may not always align with what every trainee needs.

This is where knowing the “how” comes into play. It’s easy to apply the hand-me-down training most of the time and have it work, but those times where it doesn’t, we’re far less able to adjust and adapt because we can’t apply what we know about why the activity is successful to other ideas and strategies. When we know how adults learn, how we retain information, and what our brain is doing while we’re trying to develop the necessary skills, we no longer have to rely on just a list of activities or written material to train. We’re able to apply this foundational knowledge and create new strategies and approaches to help even more trainees be successful.