Education & Training

Description: What can you do to “up your game” as an emergency service educator and ensure that your students come out both prepared for the test and ready for the street? Why is it so difficult for good teachers to connect with some students? The key is applying new twists on tried-and-true education methods. Attendees will learn the origins and current applications of adult education theory as well as how to set and use effective “on the fly objectives” for any class. Most importantly, this program presents instructors with the techniques to apply the right teaching methods at the right time to the right students.

Description: It’s clear that critical thinking must be part of an education program in order to teach students to become intelligent, compassionate and skillful emergency responders. But how do we accomplish this within the constraints of current educational curricula? This presentation is for anyone who wants to better incorporate critical thinking skills into their course content and testing processes. Critical thinking is vital not only for effective delivery of emergency services, but as a lifelong learning skill necessary for our students to excel as fire, rescue and EMS responders.

Description: The Know-it-all. The Worrier. The Heckler. The Rambler. The Cheater. Is one rotten apple going to spoil your whole program? This program provides educators of all levels with insight into the sources of student issues as well as the mistakes that instructors commonly make that contribute to classroom unrest. Using lecture, role-play, and comedy, Rom Duckworth shows how educators can differentiate between difficult students and difficult behaviors, how to deal with immediate classroom problems, and what can be done to avoid trouble before it begins.

Description: To expect action from students, educators must use the three legs of educational inspiration; story, style, and staging. When educators develop and present programs, we don’t do it to display our skills with slide decks. Educators build programs to inspire and enable their audiences to help move emergency services forward. This program isn't about PowerPoint tips and tricks (although some are included). Rather, it demonstrates effective communications and message delivery techniques, tools for successful student/attendee engagement, and presentation of a compelling "call to action" designed to motivate attendees to effect positive change in the way that we work for, care for and protect our communities.

Description: If educators want to improve student engagement, skills retention, and assimilation and application of the knowledge they must avoid the teacher-centric techniques of the last century and embrace student-centered education. We know that straight lecture is not the only available (or best) teaching method for emergency service educators but it tends to be the default one. Student-centered teaching techniques better enable students to process and apply information in the same ways that they will need to as field providers. With the help of newly available social-mobile tools, these methods can be easily integrated into existing emergency service education programs. This presentation explores not just toys, tips, and tricks, but methods to fundamentally transform the students’ “user experience” by emphasizing the dynamic application of knowledge through both digital and analog student-centered activities.

Description: Educators who want their EMS providers to attain the “soft skills” critical for their profession can also increase enthusiasm and engagement using the right hands-on exercises. As a profession, emergency services is nearly unique in its demands for providers to be able to act as both coordinated team members and independent operators. Critical concepts such as group dynamics, team building, leadership, followership, and interpersonal communications can be difficult to introduce in cognitive and affective domains, let alone practice as psychomotor skills. While there are plenty of “Get out of your seat” activities out there, many of them entertain and fill time, but few focus on teaching and evaluating team-based competencies. Featuring twenty-five different exercises that you can bring back to your EMS classroom today this program will help you help your students work together better both in the classroom and on the street.

Description: Recall of information is simply not good enough. For students to be capable of practical problem-solving and skills performance, their educators must insist on using competency-based principles of education. Through a combination of educational methods and resources, pacing learning to student performance, providing frequent feedback, and connecting foundational information with real-world performance, it has been proven that students will leave the classroom not just more ready for the test but more ready for the street. This program will help EMS Educators better implement the competency-based National Education Standards crucial for students to complete their programs and emerge as true healthcare professionals, new, but street-ready providers, and lifelong learners.

Description: This session delivers a ton of great tips to pass on to your students, colleagues, and fellow educators. With more than 30 years of experience as an EMS educator, textbook and test bank author, and EMS education columnist for EMS World Magazine, Rom Duckworth will present the top tips to build an effective lesson, topple test anxiety, improve reading and test performance (both written and practical), step up psychomotor skills, and what every presentation needs to keep students engaged. Topics are chosen by the audience with questions and answers throughout the program.

Experience doesn't teach. Reflection does. We've all worked with providers who run the same call a hundred times and never seem to improve because nobody's helping them extract the lesson. Meanwhile, high-performing teams and agencies are using structured debriefing not just after simulations, but after real calls, difficult scenes, and operational near-misses. The difference isn't luck. It's method.

This session gives you the practical tools to turn everyday experience into actual learning. We'll work through debriefing models that function in the real world, not just the training room, and introduce the modified Plus Delta format, a flexible, low-barrier approach that works whether you're a crew chief debriefing a call in the rig or a training officer building a culture of continuous improvement across shifts.

You'll leave with techniques you can use tomorrow: how to structure reflection without it feeling punitive, how to ask questions that surface insight instead of defensiveness, and how to adapt debriefing to different contexts, from high-acuity clinical events to routine operational decisions. This isn't about adding more paperwork or mandatory meetings. It's about making the learning that's already happening more deliberate, more effective, and more consistent.

Whether you're an educator, an officer, or a frontline provider trying to help your crew get better, this session is built for people who want practical tools that actually get used.