School Safety Training - Criterion-based?

There are numerous companies and numerous school safety programs out there, especially in the area of Active Shooter Intervention.  The last couple of blogs have been taking a look at various elements in school safety training, research and continuity of training.  Now let's look at criterion-referenced training.

Many quality training programs lack a component that is prevalent throughout education; the use of Goals, Objectives and Assessment.  One educational model that incorporates these elements is Criterion-Referenced Instruction (CRI).  This model was developed by Dr. Robert F. Mager (More research!), and is used by many professional educators to develop their lesson plans, and their curriculum.  To be sure, there are other models in use, but they do have common elements; What overall goal is being attempted? What are the standards to be assessed?  How will the assessment be conducted?

Having sat through quite a few different training programs and classes for school safety, the only ones I know that has followed these educational guidelines is FEMA.  To be able to get a certificate from the Emergency Management Institute, you have to complete the modules (goals and standards) and then successfully pass a final exam (assessed to a criterion).

Let's take a look at how an Active Shooter response lesson might look using this criterion.

There are numerous goals to set when considering how to respond to an Active Shooter Incident in your building.  I teach the use of the Window of Life to help people assess their actions during the critical opening seconds of any crisis.  The steps are: Protect yourself; protect others; protect your facility; notify public safety.  Since this addresses those critical first moments, let's establish a goal for its use.

Mager established a method to analyze goals.
1. Write down the goal in brief phrases or single words.
2. Write down the performance that, if achieved, would provide confirmation that the goal was achieved.
3. Delete any duplications or unwanted items. If there are items in 1 and 2 that are too abstract (fuzzy), rewrite to make more specific.
4. Write a complete statement for each desired behavior or performance. Describe the nature, quality, or amount considered acceptable.
5. Test the statements against the original goals in no. 1. If a student demonstrated the stated performances, would you be willing to say that he has achieved the goal? when the answer is yes, the analysis is complete.

When writing goals, use concrete language to describe measurable behaviors.  Some terms to use include: To write, to recite, to identify, to differentiate, to solve, to construct, to list, to compare, to contrast, to demonstrate.

Using all this, let's establish a goal.
1. Use the proper action steps during the first 30 seconds.
2. Staff and students are secured, and prepared for further action.
3. N/A
4. Upon recognition of an Active Shooter Incident, the student will take proper action steps, in 100% compliance with the Window of Life.
5. N/A

Using this, we go from an orientation, which is the common approach of a lot of school safety training, to describing discrete, measurable skills that can let the instructor know that their students understand what they have taught.

In today's world of liability issue, this can be huge.  An instructor who can document that his/her students met a criterion will be in much better shape than an instructor who says, "They attended my class."  This can be especially true of "Train the Trainer" certification.  The question now is, if you are a 'certified' instructor, what does that mean?  To an educator, that means that an instructor has demonstrated mastery of the skills for which they are instructing.

If the overall goal is to instruct educators on how to save lives, then shouldn't we find out if they can after they've been instructed?

Next: Who's Being Trained?