Dear All,
Almost by accident I started training my forecasters with the help of a simulator. They love it, because it is an hands-on training, so finally something else then sitting statically in a classroom. At the same time it is a bit scary too, because people who do it the first time don’t know what to expect.
All I have done so far has been the result of interest in computer aided learning, inspirational conversations with training staff of KNMI customers who already had some experience and my intuition. For me this session is a great opportunity to see get some theoretical background, get some new and fresh ideas for the future and learn more about it. And what I most looking forward to is to help each other, make the training & assessment with simulators even more effective and to make plans together for the future.
First the resources I already had:
1) A special bulletin on Training & Simulation from the ATP network. From what I have seen at an exercise from the Dutch Air Traffic Control is that they are miles ahead of us. Simulator training is part of their assessment structure too. This bulletin gives you a view into their world.
The things I took from it:
- Page 12 the paragraph: Simulation for Controllers: Think “out of the box” …also practice things which are less common to happen to prepare your people for unexpected things.
- Page 13: Don’t be afraid to train on a simulator with a different look than your own environment. It is just like driving a car. Your present car is probably not the same make and model as the one you had your driving lessons in.
2) Article: “Training for crisis response with serious games based on early warning systems.” This paper has been written by training support officers from KNMI customers I worked with to create a joined training. Some of you probably have seen my presentations about that some years ago. This article shows you the story of our opponents in that training.
The thing I learned from them was that the training program could be divided in three different parts: education, training and exercise. That was when the first missing links felt together for me. Apparently there is more literature on this item from some American guy, but until now I haven’t found it.
New resources I found:
1) The description on simulation in the Wikipedia. That says: Simulation usually occurs when it is prohibitively expensive or simply too dangerous to allow trainees to use the real equipment in the real world…….I think we should add that it allows trainees to exercise with circumstances which doesn’t occur very often. If you read the very interesting part on disaster preparedness and simulation training part in reference 46 you will find the overall benefit from simulator training: “Elimination of Risks to Safety: People learn from their mistakes. In fact, allowing trainees to make mistakes and experience the consequences of those mistakes is a powerful teaching technique.”
2) The Article ”Why NOT Simulation” made me curious….It was great to be able to read also some critical stuff. This article shows you that you can’t use simulations for all circumstances which is very understandable. You have to think what your want your goals are and how you want to manage that. I think the "implications" part of this article is great. It learns you that most of the learning comes in discussions after the simulation (the debrief, or after action review.”). This was something we found in our training too. And not only the participants learned but also KNMI has learned a lot how we could arrange the circumstances and conditions even better for the forecaster who had to act in serious situations.
Okay this it for now. I have more material waiting to be read. But I am also curious of what your ideas are and what you have found/experienced in the world of simulators.
Hartelijke groet,
Heleen