Top Educator FAQs Answered

EMS educators are supposed to have all the answers, so what happens when they want to ask questions? They can post them here. Here are the top questions (and our answers) from educators around the EMS world.

What can I do to avoid “death by PowerPoint”?

The most important thing to understand is that the issue is not PowerPoint—it’s how PowerPoint is used. We’ve discussed things like the communication tools of the masters and using medutainment to enhance EMS education, but there are few more simple rules everyone needs to know.

A PowerPoint presentation is not a document. If your audience is reading bullet points off a screen, they’re not listening to you. Likewise, they don’t want you to read to them from the screen. If reading is what you want to happen either before or after class, that’s what textbooks are for. If there are no textbooks for what you’re teaching, give students handouts or point them to other resources. It could be appropriate to have a graphic or some words on the screen to provide context, but focus on engaging students in discussion and otherwise facilitating learning.

What do I do about students who aren’t prepared for class?

Understand that every student who isn’t prepared for class will have a reason. It can be tempting to argue with them, but it’s better not to try to decide which excuses are worthy. If there are objectives that must be met to complete the class, make sure students have all available resources to complete those assignments, even if they can’t do so when you want. 

Before giving any assignment, make sure both you and the students will be able to articulate exactly what the assignment is, how it’s to be met, and in what direct way it will help the student achieve course objectives. Facilitate completion of these assignments in whatever way you can and give the students all helpful resources up front.

If students can’t complete the assignments, have a Plan B ready. If this means they’ll be unable to complete part or all of the course, then so be it, as long as this was made clear when the assignment was given. Understand that some students may not have previously experienced real consequences for not completing work. Keep that in mind as you help them through their first assignments. The goal here is to help them complete effective and hopefully satisfying work toward objectives, not surprise them or teach them a lesson about the consequences of not listening to teacher.

What do I do about students who think that they can Google every answer?

In short, they can. That’s why Google processes more than 40,000 search queries every second (guess how I looked that up!). The goal should be to help students understand when it’s appropriate in EMS to look something up or use a reference and when a provider must have critical knowledge and skills at their fingertips. Students must learn how to think critically and differentiate between reliable information and what’s simply a popular search result. One way to achieve this is to have students perform searches and bring up results related to the topic being taught, then identify not just what’s valid and what’s out of date, unreliable, or incorrect, but also how that can be determined through critical thinking.

How do I keep students from playing with smartphones in the classroom?

Here’s another question where the focus needs to be shifted. There’s nothing wrong with students using tablets and smartphones if they’re using them to participate in class. Many students, especially younger ones, are very comfortable using these devices to engage with information. As a result, educators may achieve greater student comprehension by including these devices in class assignments, polls, quizzes, and other activities. A side benefit is that if students are using their smartphones in class for class activity, they’re probably not using them to Snapchat.

How can I better prepare my students for real-world calls? 

Learning some foundational information, like anatomy and physiology, involves memorization. But if we expect students to use what we teach to help patients who don’t perfectly match textbook descriptions, we have to avoid call-and-response, memorization-and-regurgitation teaching and testing. 

There are many education methods that apply to different students, different objectives, and different educators, but one theme holds true for all: Use teaching and testing methods that match the expected performance of the objective. If you want a student to be able to differentiate between critical and noncritical patient situations, don’t just ask them to memorize a list and repeat it back. Provide them with scenarios and simulations. If you have a simulation lab for this, great. If you don’t, you still need to create simulations and scenarios that match your actual performance objectives. Otherwise you’ll have students who can talk but not walk.

What can I do about difficult students?

If you can know only one thing about dealing with difficult students, it’s that there are no difficult students, only difficult behaviors. There are also good behaviors. You need to manage the bad behaviors and encourage and reward the good behaviors from all students. Focusing on the behavior will help you avoid making confrontations personal and make it more likely you’ll improve overall behavior in your classroom.

As with emergencies in the field, many of the questions and concerns we have as educators can’t be fixed with single solutions. They must be managed in the long term. Developing a long-term mind-set and good practices can help minimize classroom issues and maximize student performance and satisfaction. This allows educators to have a positive effect on both the community where their students work and our profession as a whole.

Rommie L. Duckworth, LP, is a dedicated emergency responder and award-winning educator with more than 25 years working in career and volunteer fire departments, hospital healthcare systems, and public and private emergency medical services. 

(Photo: Barcelona en Comu, Wikimedia Commons)