Reading about Pratt's Five Perspectives on Teaching, I was struck by not just our own transmission perspective on teaching our primary introductory class on refinery basic process safety management (Basic PSM) but also how we as an organization were stumbling toward two of the three keys to engagement without realizing it.
The three keys to engagement the Pratt lists are 1) Fostering active rather than passive engagement, 2) avoiding cognitive overload for the learners and 3) using advance organizers such as conceptual frameworks, big questions and threshold concepts. The ones that our organization are already working on are numbers 1 and 2 above.
In terms of fostering active rather than passive engagement there are two things we do. In our primary offering for PSM we provide a workbook that allows the learner to follow along as the trainer presents concepts and take part in drills and activities. This is something we are leveraging in other classes. We are also using microlearning (small chunks) testing via cell phone chat bots to engage the learners during class and during breaks with tests designed to increase their understanding and generate recall.
These are short test questions that are provided via chat directly to the learners phone on a voluntary basis. They are not the exact test questions they will be presented with on the final exam, but are designed to reinforce the concepts that the learner is being introduced to. We are currently expanding this beyond Basic PSM to include providing chat bots for microlearning testing to several other or our core safety classes.
The development of the above chat bot provides and example of engagement key 2, avoiding cognitive overload. While working with the team to produce the content for the chat bots, I felt that the questions were too simple and easy for the learners. One of my team members had to remind me that I've been working in the field for twenty years and these questions and tests were for learners who had never once worked in the industry. Basic PSM is the primer class that all new employees to the industry must take to begin work in the industry. This same phenomenon was called out by Pratt on page 82, "because cognitive overload occurs faster in beginners than in experienced learners it be difficult for a teacher to estimate how much can be presented, at what pace, and at what point learners are likely to experience cognitive overload. To resolve this dilemma, instructors need to plan and teach from a novices point of view." Thankfully my colleague, who has only worked in the industry for four years reigned me in before we released a chat bot that would have potentially increased our learners cognitive overload and provided greater frustration.
The next step will be to find a way to include the three facets of key aspect number 3, using advance organizers into our Basic PSM class.
The interesting feature of this is that our organization was stumbling toward these solutions despite a lack of formal education. I volunteered to take these classes so that we could determine the best ways to refine our teaching and training to make it more effective. The good news is we don't have as big a gap to fill. The little research we had been doing as an organization on our own was in the midst of addressing and implementing many of the solutions that so far I have learned through this class and my previous class.
Pratt, D.C., Smulders, D. & Associates. (2016). Five Perspectives on Teaching : Mapping a plurality of the good. Malabar, Florida: Krieger Publishing.
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