By Brian P. Kazmierzak
Are you sick of the typical fire service classroom? Is “Death by PowerPoint” making you a zombie to fire training? Are you having trouble getting the same training out to your career, part-time, and volunteer firefighters? Then you need to look at “Flipping the Fire Service Classroom.” This technique, which was first introduced to the masses by the Khan Academy via (www.KhanAcademy.com) is taking off not only in elementary, high school and college classrooms across the world, but also in fire service classrooms for recruit and incumbent firefighter training.
Flipped learning is a form of blended learning in which students learn new content online by watching video lectures, usually at home. What used to be homework (assigned problems) is now done in class with teachers offering more personalized guidance and interaction with students, instead of lecturing. This is also known as backwards classroom, reverse instruction, flipping the classroom and reverse teaching.
During the 2007 school year, Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams decided they were spending the majority of their day standing in front of the class repeating the same lecture information to all of their students. Placing a high value on student / teacher interaction, they began to look for a way to get the lecture material to the students ahead of class and use class time for student interaction and higher learning. With the tight schedules of students today, they also realized that if a student had to miss class, there was no real good way of catching up on the missed lecture and activities in class. They decided to start video recording their lectures for the entire year, planning to use them to “flip” their class the following year.
Jonathan and Aaron say this method of teaching allows them to “reach every student in every class every day.” Their students will tell you that they like the video lectures mostly because they can “pause the teacher” and review any parts of the lecture with which they are having trouble. By taking this time-consuming lecture material out of the classroom (almost), the educators can now spend their time and experience reaching and evaluating every student in their class every day. This close monitoring of each student allows the teacher to tailor further course work to the needs of each student’s level rather than having to move at the pace of the slowest student.1
We have only so many hours to get the required training completed and often we are required to work around emergency calls and other department events or activities. Oftentimes, members would get only a fraction of the class material before responding to a call and missing the remainder of the training altogether. This was especially the case for medic units who are gone more than an hour on most runs because of hospital transport and writing reports.
Keeping the Firefighters Engaged
Instead of delivering a long-winded lecture and then assigning homework, we flip it by prerecording short lessons and posting them online. Student’s watch the videos at their own pace as homework and come to class prepared to do hands-on activities and in-depth collaborative projects.
The concept is really a commonsense approach to making the instructor-led sessions of training more efficient. The basic idea is that an instructor will provide student materials through a Web portal, blackboard, online learning service, or other method before the classroom/practical sessions begin. It is the student’s responsibility to study this material before coming to class and to be prepared to participate in training based on the ideas and concepts presented in the material. When the actual “class” begins, the instructor has less teaching to do because students already have knowledge of the material. The instructor assists the students as they complete the classroom segment. In some cases, this concept may eliminate a classroom segment altogether, and the class will begin with practical training.
If you flip the classroom, why do you need an instructor? You are really the facilitator and the subject-matter expert for the class. It is the instructor’s responsibility to ensure that the objectives and material are covered. The instructor also needs to make sure the information being presented conforms to department policy.
Flipping the classroom can be challenging; however, once you get through the initial phase with the department or class, the atmosphere should improve and the participants should be more ready to accept the new method of an active classroom. Encourage the participants to be creative and not to use the traditional classroom methodology of a teacher standing in front of the class talking the entire time.
I have found that flipped classroom learning has enabled the class to spend more class time talking about the critical safety elements of the task or drill, putting greater emphasis overall on firefighter safety. You can also concentrate on any issues students have with the course—for example, 75 percent of the students missing the same quiz question.
Overcoming the Digital Divide and Pitfalls
Teachers need to determine how to overcome the “digital divide” and accommodate firefighters who don’t own a laptop, an iPad, or a smart phone or who don’t have Internet access at home. Some instructors have put materials on flash drives or even burned DVDs students can watch on television.
Another downside to the flipped classroom cited by some is that students would be spending all of their “homework time” plugged in in front of a computer screen, adding to their sedentary time. Also, some students do not learn well from a screen. Additionally, in some rural areas Internet connections are not as fast as others or are not even available.
Another issue is that there is no guarantee that the students will watch and participate in the online lectures. Students have to be self-motivated, and each student has a different level of motivation. This poses a problem if too many students come to class unprepared and the teacher essentially has to reiterate what the students should have learned at home on their own. This situation would defeat the purpose of the flipped classroom since the teacher would not be able to give students the one-on-one attention flipping a classroom is designed to give.
Some positive and negatives of flipping the fire service classroom include the following:
Positives
· Helps students who were absent stay current.
· Helps students who don’t get the lesson the first time in class.
· Good resource for teacher assistants or student support staff who may not know the curriculum or may not know what to focus on.
· Can attach Google forms or other online quizzes to check for comprehension, along with the video link sent to students
Negatives
· Sometimes the videos can be boring. Also, the instructor must make sure the firefighter skill videos are technically correct.
· I’m not sure how much the videos are being used. Some subjects are learned better through direct one-on-one contact.
· When I teach, I get feedback from my students by looking at their faces and gauging their comprehension. You don’t get that feedback designing and creating videos.
It Doesn’t Have to Be Expensive or Complicated
You may be wondering, what is this going to cost me? How will I have the time to do it? I am not a techy. I can’t do this, and so on. Flipping the classroom doesn’t have to be complicated; you don’t have to be a computer programmer. In many cases, the material already exists.
Free online learning management systems such as Moodle, CourseSites by Blackboard, Emodo, and Odijoo are also easy to use. Additionally, the Google platform including Google Forms, Google Docs, and YouTube are easy and free ways to manage content and quizzes.
One of the best and free places to find content for the flipped fire service classroom online is at http://emberly.fireengineering.com/index.html, specifically the Training Minutes Section found at http://emberly.fireengineering.com/video.html. Of course, there are the more expensive options such as JB Navigate and Blackboard. They are well built and allow for customization.
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I encourage you to look at the Kahn Academy “Flipping the Classroom” video on TED (www.ted.com/talks/salman_khan_let_s_use_video_to_reinvent_education.html). The site is only a sliver of what he offers as an educational resource. Short (10 minutes or less) YouTube videos provide clear, concise learning vignettes, which are also perfect for the firefighter’s attention span. Also visit Frank Lipski’s Fire Service Training site (www.ModernFireInstructor.com), which features articles, podcasts, and videos on Flipping the Fire Service Classroom, including an online course on how to flip your fire department training program.
Additional must-visit links include the following:
www.YouTube.com/PennFireTraining
Endnote
1. Lipski, Frank. www.FlippedFireTraining.com).
Bio
BRIAN P. KAZMIERZAK, EFO, CT, is the division chief of training for the Penn Twp. Fire Department in Mishawaka, Indiana. He has a bachelor’s degree in fire service administration from Southern Illinois University and serves as the director of operations for www.firefighterclosecalls.com. He was the recipient of the 2006 F.O.O.L.S. International Dana Hannon Instructor of the Year award, the 2008 Indiana Fire Chiefs Training Officer of the Year award, and the 2011 ISFSI/FDIC George D. Post Fire Instructor of the Year award. He completed the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer Program I 2006 and is a CPSE credentialed Chief Training Officer. He is a partner in the Web site www.TheTrainingOfficer.com and posts numerous training-related documents each month at www.PennFire.org.
