BY DON BECKERING
Minnesota’s firefighters and emergency responders are trained to protect the state’s nearly five million citizens and its natural resources. Emergency responders, including firefighters (when mandated by their city), at a minimum, must be certified at the first responder level. There are an estimated 24,000 certified first responders in the state; the number is closer to 100,000 when including the state’s entire population of emergency responders. Many of these responders receive their first responder training through the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) system, an educational network that serves more than 330,000 students at 34 state universities, community colleges, technical colleges, and combined community and technical colleges located on 53 campuses across the state. Through the Office of the Chancellor’s Fire/ EMS/Safety Center, MnSCU offers more than one million hours of emergency response and firefighting-related instruction. MnSCU is implementing a new “blended e-learning” approach to deliver first responder initial and refresher certification courses to train and equip the state’s emergency responders more efficiently. The blended e-learning approach is a new educational method that combines traditional classroom and textbook instruction with computer-based e-learning techniques.
The push to provide more efficiently the state’s firefighters and emergency responders with the necessary base-level first responder training came out of a two-year work plan that MnSCU developed in 2002. Among the plan’s primary strategies for enhancing the educational system was to increase educational access and opportunity. After much research, it was decided that a blended e-learning approach was the answer.
As in the fire service, before implementing a blended e-learning solution, MnSCU relied predominantly on knowledge delivery and skills demonstration for its first responder training. Traditionally, the knowledge portion was delivered in a classroom by MnSCU-approved instructors. This method of delivery was difficult to tailor to the skills, needs, and schedules of individual responders. Moreover, it couldn’t be easily re-viewed or accessed by training officers, chiefs, or any other administrative personnel outside of the MnSCU system. Delivering the knowledge portion in the classroom setting often took away from the imperative hands-on skills demonstrations that MnSCU felt needed to be delivered more extensively.
Furthermore, the typical classroom-based instruction became incredibly burdensome for the many volunteer and rural firefighters who often had to drive between 50 and 100 miles to attend classes structured on a four-hour, 12-evening class schedule for a total of 48 hours of classroom time. This created even more pressure for volunteers who were already balancing family, work schedules, and their commitment to the fire service and community as trained first responders.
MnSCU strived for many years to make this training consistent, accessible, and affordable to as many current and prospective emergency responders as possible. However, because of the vast numbers of diverse learners across the state and a shortage of qualified instructors to teach these courses, it became a continual challenge to effectively deliver and ensure accessibility of the first responder initial and refresher courses. As a result of the restrictive classroom-only delivery method, many communities throughout Minnesota faced critical shortages of adequately trained and certified personnel to efficiently respond to medical emergencies, operate ambulances, and staff emergency response rescue squads.
Taking this into consideration, MnSCU realized that one of the fastest ways to increase access was to incorporate the power of technology, particularly that of the Internet. Through extensive research, MnSCU determined a blended e-learning approach would eliminate most of the problems associated with the current classroom-based courses. By developing its own blended e-learning approach, MnSCU combined the traditional textbook, classroom, and skills training approaches with a new multimedia, computer-based e-learning training program to ensure that the educational access was significantly enhanced. The new blended learning ap-proach has converted MnSCU’s first responder curriculum into an advanced, self-paced learning experience that is now worth three hours of college credit. The teaching environment is split between 30 hours of e-learning and 24 hours of skills training in which students perform hands-on techniques. The traditional classroom lectures that had required almost 50 hours were eliminated entirely. Now, responders only spend time in the classroom for hands-on training and the refinement of physical skill sets.
Anticipating that students would have to spend considerable time in front of the computer, MnSCU determined that a text-based traditional e-learning “page turner” course would not facilitate sufficient student learning and retention. MnSCU choose to deliver the e-learning portion of each course though a “hybrid application” solution in which much of the course content and information is stored on a Web-ROM instead of being streamed across the Internet. The Web-ROM is a unique CD-ROM-like disk that seamlessly connects to the Internet to deliver updated information and enable student tracking. Web-ROM technology allows MnSCU to deliver virtual reality scenarios, full-motion video, audio, and high-resolution graphics, resulting in a rich learning experience for all learners regardless of location or modem connection speed. For instance, the hybrid application allows a firefighter connected through a basic 24.4k dial-up modem in Thief River Falls in the state’s northwest corner to receive the same e-learning experience as the learner with a high-speed T-1 line in St. Paul.
You may wonder how converting a class from a traditional textbook- and classroom-based course into a curriculum involving computers and Web-ROMs can be seen as helping to increase educational access and opportunity. The simple fact is that in today’s “wired” world, people find it much easier to find a computer than to locate a nearby college campus. The pervasiveness of the home PC and the number of people who have computer access at work or in local libraries supports this. This holds true for the few small towns in parts of Minnesota that at times may be more than 100 miles from the nearest MnSCU facility. In fact, many remote communities rely heavily on the Internet for their connection to the rest of the world.
In addition, by increasing the skills training time and eliminating the traditional classroom lectures, the course matches a variety of learning styles. Built as a course that responders can access on their own time and at their own pace, the blended e-learning approach allows students to decide for themselves how much effort they need to dedicate to specific building blocks of information.
Beyond allowing students to self-pace their learning and easily access course materials from home and work, the blended learning approach allows instructors to easily track students’ e-learning progress and hands-on skills competencies. Students securely log in through www.mnscuworld.com and attach to the Learning Management System (LMS) to establish their unique learner identity. Results are tracked by course, topic, training duration, and scores received in the DOT Skills-Check-Off final practical.
Another benefit of the blended e-learning approach is that every student receives the exact same training from the exact same source. There is no longer concern about students being trained by different instructors with varying training methodologies. Moreover, the course is fully compliant with state standards for training first responders; it ensures the most complete and accurate level of training information from a single source. Now that the skills training element of the course is fully realized through the blended learning approach, the intangible factors of teacher-student interaction play an even larger role than ever before.
The blended e-learning approach MnSCU has adopted is also making it easier for students to progress further into EMS training. The curriculum is breaking new ground in EMS training by developing into a bridge course for EMT-B certification. This way, students who successfully complete the first responder course can rapidly move into EMT-B training.
By transforming the state’s traditional first responder training process into a blended e-learning environment, MnSCU knew it could greatly increase educational access by providing students with the opportunity to learn at home, at work, or anywhere with computer access and a room to read a book.
One thing that every city and town, regardless of its size, has in common is that at some time or another there will be an emergency. It has often been said that the action taken in the first five minutes will determine the outcome of an emergency situation. Thus, the need for qualified people to handle any emergency situation from the onset is paramount. Making first responder training more accessible by offering a blended e-learning system that enables in-home, self-paced learning, the state of Minnesota has not only made first responder training more efficient and enjoyable, but it’s also making the state a safer place to live.
DON BECKERING is the state director of fire/EMS/safety training in the Office of the Chancellor for the Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU). A 29-year veteran of the fire service, he served 21 years as an officer, including 11 years as a chief officer.
