Good training is challenging, approachable and available, and transferable.
The first item on this list is maybe the most obvious but is often the thing we miss when we build training in law enforcement. If the training is not challenging your students, you aren’t creating opportunities for improvement.
Imagine two classes:
In the first one the instructor stands in front the room, maybe they have a white board or a PowerPoint deck, perhaps there’s a handout of the PowerPoint, and they tell the class stuff. When the class ends each student has a bunch of information that has been told to them, that they are now required to know and use correctly.
In the second one, the instructor has a handout that contains the new information. Everyone gets that handout and then the instructor plays a video. At the end of the video, the instructor asks the students if the officers in the video you just watched did what they should have done, given the information provided in the handout. Over the course of the class the activity turns into individual students describing what they would do next in the situation that would be compliant with the new information. Eventually, each student goes through a short role-play/scenario where they appropriately handle a novel situation that requires them to correctly use the new information.
The first class would not challenge you as a student during the class time. You could spend that class texting with a friend, or napping. It is only later, when you need to use that new information in your actual job, without a safety net if you do it wrong, that you will be challenged - possibly with dire consequences. The second class challenges you during the class, where there is a chance for feedback and a safe environment to test the information and your understanding of it, to apply the information in multiple contexts, and possibly to fail when you can safely learn from that failure.
When I say a class should be approachable or available, I mean primarily that the information is presented in a way that assists the student with understanding the information. I also mean that the student is supported so that they can succeed at the challenges presented in the class. In our second example class above, the instructor should closely guide the students through the first attempt, and slowly reduce their guidance as the students show improvement. In the first example class, the instructor might say something like, “We have a lot of information to get through in the next hour…” which may not be meant to cut off questions and other student interactions but usually has that effect.
Be aware that as the instructor, you have all the information, and it can be easy in that situation to feel like you are “serving up softballs” to your students. As the instructor, you need to look at the training from the student’s perspective. What do they know and how familiar are they with the information? Set your standards for their performance using policy and law but provide support so they can learn and make progress in the topic. This can be illustrated in the difference between putting your student in the most complex, lifelike scenario possible as the first exposure to the information versus starting with small scenarios and increasing the complexity as the student progresses. The first way is a sink or swim trial, the second is guiding their practice with the information until they are proficient.
Transferable means that the training is encapsulated so that the student can lift the skill out of the training and place it directly into their work. The more the later stages of the training environment looks and feels like the student’s work, the easier this will likely be for them.
Of course, we also need to be aware that available resources are a challenge to creating good training and must be considered. But don’t let challenges that need to be overcome or bypassed become obstacles that stop the training from happening. Keep in mind that good training should not measured by the cost. Cost is just a fact of training. It may create a need to change the scope or depth of the training that occurs, but don’t let it become a measurement of the training. Quality training now will very likely cost less than what poor training will cost you later.
- Will