If You Have Time to Lean, You Have Time to Clean! Is there value in busywork in emergency services? I think your answer probably depends on whether you are Supervisor or Staff in your organization.
Read More »Editorial
Following The Rules for Educators
While this post is in reference to an incident that occurred at a conference presentation, the rules for educators apply to any kind of education including in-house, open-to-the-public, formal academic or informal pick-up drill. If you teach, read on...
Read More »Education For The Next Generation of Responders: We CAN NOT Teach Like We Were Taught
Honor Your History, but Teach for the Future Welcome to the new year. If we’ve learned anything over the past year then we’re smarter than a year ago and way ahead of where we were ten years ago. Let’s start teaching like it. First We Taught Book Knowledge. Then We Taught Street Knowledge. We’re Beyond That Now.
Read More »Leadership Lessons: Are Your Leaders Acting like Parents or Substitute Teachers?
The chief emphasized that he didn't mean that all of his people were acting like children, although the look in his eye implied that maybe some were. I wasn't suggesting anything about the maturity of his people, but rather that parents don't stop being parents when their children grow up. In fact, this is exactly what I meant by helping agency leaders acting like parents rather than substitute teachers.
Read More »4+20+10 Things Your Department Social Media Policy Must Address
The biggest problem… With today’s social media use policies are the gigantic swaths of “gray area” that shroud some issues. Not only do statutes and regulations vary tremendously from state to state and workplace to workplace, but as social media case law develops it can be difficult to determine how key phrases such as “free speech”, “privacy protection”, and “on-the-job” ...
Read More »How to write an article or create a presentation for emergency services (or just about anything else)
Everyone has their own way to write an article. Everyone has their own voice and individual style, and a way of adapting that style depending on what they want to write. In this article, I’m not going to speak to finding your voice or style , but I am going to share with you the method I use to craft ...
Read More »Effective Communication: Why are you letting weakening words undermine your message?
Effective communication is a challenge that we face in every facet of emergency response. One of the most difficult challenges encountered by new educators and leaders looking to move “from buddy to boss” is building credibility and personal authority. Many of us work hard at it every day of our career and get it right most of the time, but ...
Read More »Are your goals as SMART as you think they are?
You’re smart. Make sure your goals are too! Do you make effective goal setting a habit or a luxury? On an emergency call, in station, or in your personal life have you set goals for yourself or others that seemed so clear when you set out, but somehow fell apart when you actually started work? Setting and accomplishing goals is ...
Read More »Hey Educator, You’ve Changed!
So if you’re new educator, don’t try and steamroll over the senior people because they don’t already know all about student centered social mobile online whatchamacallit. And for senior educators and staff in police, fire, and EMS, please continue to bring your knowledge and experience into the classroom, even if you have to stretch a little to do it in new and unfamiliar ways.
Read More »Academic Education and Technology
While we speak of education at RescueDigest most times we’re talking about training and education in leadership or operational issues. Floating somewhere in on and around those issues though is the purely academic aspect of education.
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