You find yourself as a new instructor trying to deliver training at the fire house. This is not an easy task when you are first getting started. Many new instructors have a good idea about the topic they want to cover or the techniques they want to teach but lack a good plan to deliver the material so that the firefighters understand. If we walk into a training session unprepared our fellow firefighters will see it from a mile away. In order to help out new instructors we put together a short video discussing some basic teaching principles. Something a good friend of mine taught me years ago was a very simple structure for delivering instruction:
- Tell them what you are about to tell them
- Tell them
- Tell them what you told them
This is very basic concept and forces your instruction to have a beginning, middle and an end. However, we can take this a step further and look at a four step teaching method below:
TELL = Explain Theory
SHOW = Demonstrate Skills
DO = Practice those Skills
APPLY = Provide a practical application and assessment method for the skills taught
Personally I believe all instructors should explain the "why's" first. This provides firefighters with a reason for understanding the upcoming concepts or skills. Once we have given our firefighters a reason for training it will be much easier to provide the solutions or skills that address the "why's".
In the video below I will cover these basic instructional processes.
https://youtu.be/cKrXqwzYKWM