Bad Refreshers

By Travis Dotson 

We have all been there.  The seated refresher.  All day in a chair.  Even if the videos are good, the process gets old. 

The set up is not conducive to learning - it's more likely to result in drowsiness and habitual Facebook scrolling. 

So why do we do it? We all know most folks get told "you need to put on the refresher this year."  Then that person just replicates what they have sat through in the past.  We are not professional educators so what we get makes sense.  

I happen to think there are a few small steps we can take to make our yearly tune up just a bit better. 

1. Be Relevant: Use this: Annual Incident Review Summary I know - shameless plug for LLC stuff, but this thing is purposely built for injecting relevancy into curriculum.  It's what happened last year.  It's what those in the bulls eye had to say about what happened to them.  It has exercises you can do.  Modify them to suit your situation. 

2. Go outside:  There are so many ways to do this.  Do a classroom section on driving and then load everyone up and drive to a field site for the next section.  That is real deal theory/application right there!  You could even design your own Staff Ride that meets refresher requirements!  If weather does not allow, replace outside with stand up and move around. 

3. Prepare:  Use this: Wildland Fire Safety Annual Refresher Training Again, its purpose built. 

4. Be honest:  Talk about real stuff.  Authenticity matters. 

5. Look to experts:  Be inspired by TED talks.  Show one and discuss it, we love relating non fire stuff to fire.   Go further.  Make presentations look like TED talks.  Don't talk for more than 20 minutes - ever.  If you have a screen, don't put lots of words on it - use pictures. 

That's all.  Just five things that could help.  Maybe just do one of them.  

I'm sure you have ideas of your own - share them in the comments.