Make an Impression In Your Next Classroom Session with Training Techniques that Work!

Confessions of a SAFE-AHOLIC, By: Stephanie Zizzo, ASHM

In the world of Safety, there are countless opportunities to sit in training sessions, whether you are at a conference looking for your CEU's or at work learning about the basics of Fire Safety. About how many of those classroom sessions have put you to sleep? Or how many have you walked out of feeling, “Wow... I want the last 40 minutes of my life back...” Engaging adults as learners, especially in the classroom setting, must go beyond the lectures and the PowerPoints; capturing an adult mind requires more than that. Group discussions, role-playing, storytelling, and simulations are just a few great techniques that should be incorporated into any training classroom.

I read an article in the Professional Safety Journal, titled “Engaging Learners”. In the article the author Fred Fanning discusses how people only remember about 20% of what they hear. This means when you take your Machine Guarding course, you walk out only remembering 20% of the extremely important procedures because it was read to you from a PowerPoint. You have not only lost valuable information but, are now at risk of endangering your life and the lives around you...

How do we avoid losing so much info? One of my favorite techniques to use while training is simulation. While I was teaching a First Aid course to a group of student employees at Grand Valley State University I used a “golf cart accident” simulation to get the students involved in a semi-real situation. I had a volunteer pretend he had been in a accident in a golf cart and toward the end of my presentation I told the students there had been an emergency that we needed to attend to right away! We all rushed outside to find our fellow co-worker covered in red corn syrup blood (it looked VERY real!!). The students used what they had learned during the training session to provide proper first aid until the “EMS” could arrive.

Though creating a simulation requires more time and energy and sometimes an extra buck, it is well worth it. According to the article by Fanning, while adults only remember 20% of what they read and hear, they remember 60% of what they do.

The best part about being a trainer is that you can use your creativity to help others learn skills for a certain job or project. In class while I was a student at GVSU, my favorite professors were the ones who had so many great stories! Storytelling is one of the most effective training tools that I have have ever used or taken part in. “Storytelling can impart complex information in an understandable manner” (Fanning, 2011).

I will never forget one of my classes in college when my OSH professor explained to us about Lockout/Tagout. He told us the story of a man who worked at a dog food plant. He informed us that he went into the mixer and forgot to lockout the machine...someone came and turned it on and the exact words from my professor were “they were picking him up with a spoon...” I remember going back to my dorm and telling everyone that story. I also remember how important is it to practice the procedures of Lockout/Tagout.

The bottom line is it is important to use multiple methods to “break-up” a classroom training session and engage users. Don’t use just one method. Combining PowerPoint™, simulation, interaction, and Q & A keeps students actively thinking. Segmenting with a video training program on the topic is a great way to engage students, especially a video program that shows real working situations and on the job activities while explain best safety practices. For many topics, hands on training is extremely beneficial and sometimes required. The old “lecture and lab” concept still works today.

Remember that the responsibility of training students can be very rewarding if you put in the time and effort. Use your personal experiences and your creativity to make the learning environment worth while and interesting. Challenge yourself and your students to create a fun and effective classroom!

To check out some video topics that Summit Training Source has to offer click here! 

Summit Wins Top Honors from OH&S Magazine New Product of the Year Awards

Grand Rapids, MI- Summit Training Source is proud to announce top honors from the Occupational Health & Safety magazine, which held its second annual New Product of the Year contest at the 2010 National Safety Conference in San Diego. Summit surpassed competition to win the award in the product category for Best Online Training with its product line Summit Elements. Summit Elements are short video clips and graphics that you can purchase, download, and use to customize any training presentation.

The New Product of the Year contest recognizes innovation, quality, and excellence in customer service by many leading manufacturers in the safety and health industry during one of the biggest U.S. trade show of the year. Every entry in the 2010 contest was a product introduced to the market between Aug. 2, 2009, and July 2, 2010. This second annual contest attracted a new high of 42 products in 17 award categories, with an independent panel of three highly qualified judges choosing the winners.

Summit Elements joins the long line of Summit’s award winning programs. More than 45,000 industry leaders worldwide trust Summit training programs to protect their most valuable resources from risk, danger, and loss. With more than 600 environmental, health, and safety training titles in multiple formats, Summit provides proven content that delivers the business results expected in today’s competitive global environment.

Learn about Summit Elements at http://elements.safeytontheweb.com/

Find out more information on Summit’s products today by visiting http://www.safetyontheweb.com/ or call 800.842.0466.

Training the Non English Speaking Workforce

On April 28, 2010 OSHA issued a memorandum on their training policy in regards to non-English speaking workers. The purpose of this memorandum is to reiterate OSHA's policy that employee training required by OSHA standards must be presented in a manner that employees can understand, and to provide enforcement guidance to the area and regional offices relative to the Agency's training standards. This position applies to all of the agency's agriculture, construction, general industry, and maritime training requirements.


The majority of focus seems to be on the growing Latino and Hispanic speaking workforce here in the United States. Hispanic workers occupy about 14% of the job market and tend to work in dangerous jobs such as construction and mining.

The memorandum stresses that the training must account for any limitations, such as vocabulary, that the non-English speaking worker may have. This is in fact a huge limitation with training a Spanish speaking population. Many Spanish speaking workers have a limited vocabulary and are illiterate. So, how do you ensure your Spanish speaking or non-English workers are trained properly?

First and foremost, the audio in any training DVD or online course should be translated into the dialect of the worker. This is more than likely not the Spanish your kid is learning in high school. Professional language translators should be able to translate courses into a ‘common’ or ‘everyday’ form of the language. If you are getting your online or DVD courses from a vendor, you can ask them if their training is translated at a conversational level and that the vocabulary is at around a fifth grade level to ensure that it is easy to comprehend.

Secondly, look at the content of the video or online course you are showing. Does the video have a lot of ‘talking heads’ or presenters simply standing in front of the camera and speaking? This isn’t a very effective form of training for any student, nor is it very engaging; however, if your student is not as comfortable with language, showing them the proper way to do their job with correct visual representation will be the most effective.
Translated support materials are nice, but since most Spanish speaking workers are unable to read their own language, they may be ineffective. Focus on the visual when training non English speaking workers.

Online training is a good alternative to classroom training for Spanish speaking workers. Pre- and post-test options and remediation offer a complete learning experience and assurance that material is comprehended and retained by the students. Spanish-speaking students can learn with confidence and without feeling out of the loop. There are more and more resources available in the Spanish language, and greater customization options with online training that allow you to include site-specific information in Spanish. Hispanic employees will not feel the pressure of a normal classroom setting and will be more likely to communicate with the safety director on a one-to-one basis.

For information on Summit's foreign language training programs, including many in Spanish, visit http://www.safetyontheweb.com/