Facilitation and Videos

I really enjoyed reading my colleague's post on facilitation and free writing techniques especially as he mentioned videos. I used to do the same thing in my classes on safety in refineries. We would have module 1 then module 2 then module 3 with nothing ostensibly connecting them. The problem is that like so many things, an accident isn't a consequence of something going wrong like what happened in module 1 or 2 or 3. Usually it's a combination of several things at once. 

Knowing how all of the modules work together to create the environment for an accident and to make the accident worse is what's needed. For example, we might go over fire safety and the rules for how to use a fire extinguisher and the components of the fire triangle, then the second module would be on electrical safety and hazard communications, then the third module would be on how to work in confined or restricted spaces. There was usually no tie binding them all together. 

My organization found videos that combined them all. We would take all three modules then watch a movie of a real life incident where all three modules combined to create a fatal event. Irrespective of the "relevancy factor" since we were showing them videos of actual events in work places similar to where they would be working, or the "reinforcement aspect" since the video constituted a reinforcement mechanism of the learning objectives from the modules, the video helped tie it all together. In the example above, we watched a video of a fire incident that was created by a spark from an electric motor in a confined space.

To tie this back to your post Andrew, prior to starting the video I asked the class to write down some key words and write what they saw and how it related to the key words. This was done to help them pay attention to the information in the video but also as a chance to expand their understanding of the learning objectives, help them make the connections between the modules, and again as a reinforcement and reflection exercise.