Thinking differently about training - II
How do you structure your health and safety training? I think that far too often health and safety professionals simply open a regulation or a reference on a health and safety topic and begin creating PowerPoint slides organized according to the outline used in the reference or standard - scope, PEL, exposure monitoring, regulated areas, etc. Using this approach, we too often present information without regard to the trainee’s learning needs. So, what are the alternatives? The field of instructional design describes a methodology for understanding the learning needs of your target population, setting learning objectives to meet those needs, developing content and evaluating the effectiveness of the training. Industrial hygiene trainers should become familiar with this body of knowledge. I recently found the following book, “Rapid Instructional Design, Learning ID Fast and Right,” by George Piskurich an easy read and quite instructive.
Is there anything else we should do? I would like to share two ideas that I am exploring with respect to structuring training. First, I am integrating training on several different topics into a single course whenever possible. As an example, I might integrate my hazard communication, personal protective equipment, bloodborne pathogen, and hazardous waste disposal training for custodians into a single session that focuses on just what the custodian needs to know. Secondly, I am trying to organize the training according to how the trainee does their job. I have come to the conclusion that most workers’ "mental model" is the way they do their job. When training we are trying to attach new knowledge or a new skill to their existing mental model. In some of my recent training materials I have been describing the safety information that a worker must know or understand (across multiple safety topics) as I am showing someone perform the ordered sequence of tasks that make up their job. This forces me to integrate the safety information into the way they work rather then have them take the information (delivered in another structure) and attempt to integrate it after the training. I think that far too often the employee never overcomes the barrier of integrating our information into what they do (its hard). You will find a video I have put together on animal biosafety that uses this approach at the following URL (http://www.yale.edu/oehs/biomoreinfo4.htm).
Have you found ways to successful integrating training on multiple topics? With respect to structuring your training, what have you found to be effective?