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Summer 2004 | Vol. 12, No. 2 FEATURES

Emergency Responders Tap into Their Expertise to Teach Others
By Doug McInnis
The war on terror is as much about knowledge as it is about military action. Much of that knowledge is locked up in the brains of the country's first responders — the 9 million police officers, firefighters, Hazmat specialists, paramedics, and other emergency personnel who are first on the scene of a crisis. Some have already seen terror firsthand — at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the Oklahoma City federal building. These experts are needed to teach others what to do when terrorists strike. But they may not be good teachers. UNLV is addressing that problem through its new "Train the Trainers" program, which instructs professionals how to teach what they know. "We can take people who have the expertise and we can make them incredibly effective communicators," program coordinator Chris Schearer says. "You may have someone, for instance, who knows how to deal with radiological hazards. But if they aren't able to teach it, there's a problem. Using established principles of instruction, we can provide them with training so that they will be very good teachers." Those who take the program are required to make a presentation when they begin the noncredit course and another when they complete it. Each presentation is videotaped to allow students to see how they've improved. "We can generally improve every single person who takes this program and we can do it in one 40-hour week," Schearer says. The program grew out of a partnership between UNLV's Division of Educational Outreach and Bechtel Nevada's counterterrorism operations support unit. Last year, 15 Bechtel Nevada trainers completed the pilot program, and Educational Outreach hopes ultimately to train 8,000 first responders around the country.