NCBRT Annual Instructor Meeting a Success

 

December 7, 2010​

 

The National Center for Biomedical Research and Training (NCBRT) Annual Instructor Meeting (AIM) was held at the Hilton Capitol Center in Baton Rouge, La., Nov. 9-10. This year’s meeting, them​ed “Target Response,” aimed to provide NCBRT instructors the opportunity to enhance their knowledge and skills in areas such as current biological threats, natural disasters and instructional effectiveness. AIM also provided the opportunity for instructors to share training lane updates in the areas of Biological, Health and Epidemiology, Food and Agriculture, and Law Enforcement and Computer-Aided Management of Emergency Operations (CAMEO).

Featured guest speakers were Col. Randall Larsen, USAF (Ret), Dr. Karl Kim, National Disaster Preparedness Training Center (NDPTC), and Dr. Harold Stolovitch, Université de Montréal.

Larsen is the chief executive officer of the WMD Center, a non-profit research organization he founded along with Senators Bob Graham, D-Fla. and Jim Talent, R-Mo. He also serves as the national security advisor at the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburg Medical Center and is a senior fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University. Larsen’s presentation, “WMD: Asking the Right Questions,” focused on the threat of biological terrorism and the United States’ failure to recognize, prevent and prepare for this very real threat.

Biological agents are easily acquired, produced, weaponized and distributed, says Larsen. Therefore the best defense to biological threats is response. The United States has many obstacles to overcome to enhance its biological terrorism response capabilities, such as lengthy Food and Drug Administration approval processes, a lack of funding for cleanup efforts, a stubborn insistence that biological weapons can be contained and an outdated cold war model of defense. Larsen believes Americans will need to band together to respond to the biological threat. He sums up this idea with a quote from Marshal McCluen, “there are no passengers on the spaceship of earth, we are all crew.”

Dr. Karl Kim, executive director and principal investigator of the NDPTC at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, provided a background on the NDPTC, the newest member of the National Domestic Preparedness Consortium (NDPC), as well as a presentation on response to natural disasters. Kim explained how urban and regional planning increases communities’ resilience to natural disasters. This concept, known as risk based urban planning, takes into consideration factors such as population concentration, concentration of economic impact, human behavior and building use when planning response tactics to natural disasters. Careful preparation and mitigation are key to increasing resilience to natural disasters.

Dr. Harold Stolovitch, professor emeritus of instructional and performance technology at the Université de Montréal, principal of HAS Learning and Performance Solutions, LLC and author of “Telling Ain’t Training,” gave instructors many valuable insights and skills to take back to the classroom. He says it is challenging but necessary to break away from the subject matter expert role to effectively teach. Instructors must create structure and order out of chaos to help students conceptualize and bridge the “knowing/doing gap.” Stolovitch’s interactive presentation included a hands-on activity to illustrate this concept and a group discussion on good teaching habits versus bad teaching habits.

Other AIM highlights include training lane updates presented by NCBRT instructors, which covered current courses, course re-certifications, future course development, training success stories and a briefing on advisory council meetings, NDPC updates presented by NDPC Chairman Jim Fernandez and the NCBRT State of the Center presented by NCBRT director Col. Thomas Tucker.

Tucker’s State of the Center presentation was a reflection on the NCBRT’s accomplishments and a look to the future demands the NCBRT is challenged to meet. The NCBRT has almost reached 245,000 participants, and the NCBRT’s outcome based studies show that 64 percent of participants have made changes a result of the training they received.

On another positive note, the NCBRT has several courses in development and recertification phase. NCBRT instructors have been asked to reapply to teach current courses and update resumes to ensure that the right instructional teams are being chosen. Instructor Development Workshops have been successful, and instructor assessments have been positive.

One of the challenges the NCBRT is working to meet is the need for training at a time when resources are strained, and participants have less time to train. To meet this need, the NCBRT will utilize shorter course formats and virtual training. Steve Williams, NCBRT Associate Director, shared positive feedback from early participants of NCBRT virtual training, discussed the challenges and limitations of virtual training and said the NCBRT is developing instructor training on distance learning to help instructors modify their teaching techniques to be successful in such learning environments.

Overall, AIM participants were pleased with this year’s meeting. “The annual conference always offers instructors a unique learning experience,” says NDPC Chairman Jim Fernandez. “The speakers provided valuable information that will be useful in course development and instruction.”