Strategic Education Management: Outlines for a Didactic Planning Model for Exercises and Training of the Unexpected in High Risk Organizations

September 27, 2016 | Author: Arnold Cole | Category: N/A
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1 The 22 nd Society for Risk Analysis Europe (SRA E) Conference Strategic Education Management: Outlines for a Didactic ...

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The 22nd Society for Risk Analysis Europe (SRA E) Conference

Strategic Education Management: Outlines for a Didactic Planning Model for Exercises and Training of the Unexpected in High Risk Organizations The 22nd SRA E Conference, Trondheim, Norway, June 17- 19, 2013 Glenn Egil Torgersen1 Trygve J. Steiro2 Herner Saeverot3

Abstract The last years’ terror events and crisis situations provide new challenges for training for unexpected situations. Therefore, unexpected exercises and training for the unexpected can be means to meet these new challenges. Unexpected exercises can briefly be defined as: “without announced preparations before starting the exercise”. This paper will stress the need for unexpected exercises, discuss the educational framework for ensuring its success and point to limitations that can be met. We will also discuss ethical considerations regarding such type of training. It is our belief that such a framework is urgent to consider for many high risk organizations. Training for the unexpected and learning from such exercises calls for more perspectives to be included and more esthetic methods and concepts must be drawn upon in order to articulate and awaken the actual training content. These types of exercises will demand a clear mission plan and consciousness development throughout the organization. It will demand involvement from the unions and other relevant stakeholders. All stakeholders must be involved in the development of an exercise plan. The plan defined clear roles, exercise structure and working conditions (compensation etc.). Such exercise cannot be absolute acute and members need to step out of the daily operational context. This means that unexpected exercises will demand more resources and planning than traditional exercises.

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Corresponding author: Associate Professor of Education, PhD, Glenn-Egil Torgersen, Norwegian Defence University College, Akershus fortress, Oslo Mil/Akershus 0015 Oslo, Norway. Mobile +47 99 09 21 88, Mail: ikt [email protected], [email protected] 2 Trygve J. Steiro, Institute for Production and Quality Engineering, NTNU, 7465 Trondheim, Norway, Mobile + 47 92 40 05 46, Mail: [email protected]. 3 Professor of Education, Dr. philos., Herner Sæverot, Faculty of Psychology, Department of Education, University of Bergen. Pbox 7800, 5020 Bergen, Norway. Mobile + 47 41 61 61 82, Mail: [email protected], Guest Professor, Bergen Academy of Art and Design.

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Introduction

The last years terror and crisis incidents in different parts of the society imply new challenges for training on emergency preparedness situations. Unannounced exercises and training can be a mean to meet these new challenges.

The unannounced and unforeseen We define ”unannounced exercises” like this; ”An exercise that is performed without announced preparedness before execution of the exercise”. Such exercises with unknown/ not known content is necessary in risk organizations, but demand a clear plan and consciousness establishing in the organization among the employee organizations and other affected partners. All representatives must therefore be a part of the development and have commitment in such a plan. Whether such sharp unannounced exercises are possible to do, depend on the organization’s ability to establish consciousness adaption dependent on traditional didactical planning factors.

The unforeseen is defined as follows: ”A specific exercise- and training content that is not known for the participants, where there is no time logic and logical escalation pattern for the training content before the training is kicked- off. This can also be executed without an announced preparation of the exercise (Unannounced exercise)”.

That something is “not known” implies practically a continuum, between total unknown and knowledge of certain traits in the unforeseen. This must be viewed accordingly on what is previously trained on identical or similar traits on occurs without any known announcement.

An unannounced exercise can rarely be absolute acute that is equally surprising as an acute incident. An exercise like described here will clearly demand a pre- brief regarding the content and the situation just before it is launched. Typically members of the staff or crew will have to step out of the normal work situation (and replacements need to be called in) in order to perform the exercise, or alternatively brought in after normal working hours. That implies that exercises like this will have widespread effects for the organization even if the exercise only covers a smaller unit. In other circumstances, the exercise can be launched absolute acute, but here ethical protocol will demand that the incident is an unannounced exercise right 2

after the start. Even if the exercise occurs unannounced spontaneous for the participants, the exercise demands thorough planning of training design and execution by a defined group in charge. However, training for the unforeseen causes training on the unforeseen more complex planning and facilitation, than unannounced exercises with a known training content. The question is therefore whether it is possible to train for something one does not know what is or what is going to happen and how such training best can be performed. We argue that it is possible to dig into this problem field, by bringing into fundamental pedagogical structures regarding ”bildung” or “formation” (in Norwegian language “danning”) of the human. We also argue to open for new educational and methodological approaches. In this article we and build upon military educational experience models as a point of departure. In this article we will present the outline of a general didactial planning a model that can be of support for the planning and development of exercises and training for unforeseen situations. In the following the term “formation” will be used.

Planning models for training for the unexpected

The fourth way What perspectives on formation characters must be the fundament for training for the unexpected? First, we must have a holistic (encyclopedical) formation, where the purpose is to transfer a broad range of knowledge (Comenius, 1960). For example, the instructor may choose and practice all the skills or situations that may have something with the unknown to do. Such an educational approach, however, fall short, when one is in danger of practicing something that has nothing to do with the unknown you might be facing. The point is precisely that the unknown whatsoever cannot be predicted or determined, and it is therefore a risk that this phenomenon is not in the range of abilities and situations that are trained on.

Secondly, we have formal formation (Formal formation theory), where the pedagogic is about educating the participants so that they are able to learn something different and similar (Humboldt, 1903). For example, learning a language makes it easier to learn another language, etc. Here we also find an obvious weakness in light of training for the unknown. Although it is a matter of learning a new language, it is the familiar elements that underlie the training, like grammatical rules, concepts, syntax, etc. The participant will not be equipped to cope with a possible encounter with the unknown. 3

Thirdly, we have exemplified (categorical) formation where the instructor strives to find examples that can provide a widest understanding (Klafki, 1963). For example, a specific example can open for a more common understanding, more precisely a complex theory can be understood through concrete examples that the instructor has chosen carefully. However, this educational approach is not suited to train for the unforeseen. This means that one risk to reduce the unknown to something similar.

A fourth approach, introduces indirect formation, where the approach towards the unknown emerges indirectly (Saeverot, 2013). Within this new educational approach, history is nearly irrelevant, that is history is assumed not to teach us something about the unknown. This is because the unknown is about the future. However, this is not using traditional terms where the future is laying in waiting. The unknown is rather emergent, a non-calculative unforseenes, something total mystical, that never has existed previously nor will exist again, after appearing in present.

Military educational experience model In our thinking we scaffold on a military planning model, which mainly focuses on generic capabilities and competence needed to solve complex military assignments (”The demand of war”).

To clarify and strengthen the relation between different didactical factors as a fundament for the development of military exercises and training programs, the Finnish Military pedagogue Jarmio Toiskallio (2006), developed a model that focuses on the relationship between training content and the actual situation that soldiers and officers will face. In order to master military operational situations, one has to plan that the action competence hardly will have a direct transferability between training content and the actual situations soldiers and officers will face during sharp operations. As a compensation for lack of a direct link between training and the situation, one has to strive to adjust the training on other and more general and known aspects.

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Figure 1. The hermeneutical Military-Pedagogical Planning Model (Toiskallio, 2006).

Examples of the training is to build on participants' abilities and skills, develop self-awareness and self-management weaknesses, adapting training methods to individuals and groups (staffs). The core is to develop or increase self-awareness, both own and knowledge of others', that is, the team, the staff, and "colleagues". Self-awareness is therefore a key "competence" in action competence for coping with complex situations, familiar and unpredictable, whether the action (here including decisions and concrete execution and troubleshooting) performed alone or in teams. Such skills are also essential in the interaction (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009). However, such competence needs to be awakened, trained on and developed, that is initiated or activated, and in order to achieve this we need a broader educational perspective, indirect pedagogy.

How to awake an educational perspective? We can distinguish between a direct and an indirect education. In the direct pedagogy teacher or instructor will speak directly to the participant, who is in a doze condition, between sleep and wakefulness (Bollnow, 1977). That is, the instructor says, shows, etc. what the participant should see or intervene to wake or come to new awareness. Such a form of traditional pedagogy is poorly equipped in terms of a possible encounter with the unknown. The problem is in fact that the instructor controls the participant into their own thinking, with the consequence that the participant is the one who discovers the new item as the instructor pointed out. The participant will not develop an ability to think or make decisions on their own, but instead be reduced to a dependent individual controlled by someone else’s mindset.

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However, in the direct approach the instructor may block access to the participant's overall experience and competence, because it unduly allows the participant to trust the instructor's thinking, rather than their own. Furthermore, the direct pedagogy captures participant in reason, which is beyond reason, be it the mysterious, the absurd, the stranger, etc., regarded as something negative. Education through role models, examples etc. will have similar effect, because they show a pattern to be followed, and then the danger is that the participant in a real situation outside the institutional situation will fall into the trap. The reason is simple: the participant is, through direct training pedagogy, locked to see things in a predetermined perspective. Work in an overhead perspective, however, the advantage that it allows the participant in a way going through the issues itself, but not without the instructor or teacher has been indirectly present through hints, suggestions and other forms of indirect speech (Torgersen & Saeverot, 2012b). To clarify this, one can take the leap in the performance of the participant at the start of a training session is in a doze condition. Unlike the direct pedagogy that strives to awaken the participant as soon as possible - through various directives, designations, etc. - will indirectly pedagogy draw the participant deeper into dozing, so that they are even farther from what may be perceived as an alert and selfconscious state. It will be like to deceive a person already deceived. At the same time beginning a wake-up process - through various forms of indirect requests, ranging from hints, gestures, irony etc. - i.e. forms of communication that creates space for the respondent to realize that she / he is in a doze condition. Slowly but surely this can lead the participant to even approach a waking state. The advantage of such an indirect method of training is that participants will consider the matter on their own, without having to depend on someone telling what to be awakened to. The indirect approach will also provide more direct access to the participant's unique experience and expertise. Furthermore, in the doze condition the participant gradually introduced into, could encourage skepticism and curiosity as she / he faces the unknown in a real situation, outside the institutional. The reason is that the participant will face the situation with an attitude that she/ he is considered dormant, and then the leap toward self-awareness is shorter than it would have been through a more traditional education.

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Trust Within the indirect pedagogy the view on trust, that is so essential basics of practical pedagogical situations, be redefined. Traditionally, the idea that the participant must trust the instructor comes with an answer or a truth, where wrong answers or misleading answers can be viewed as a breach of trust. In the indirect pedagogical participant must trust the instructor in a different way. Here the instructor will not provide you the answer, but will lead you further into the doze condition. As soon as the instructor makes the students/ participants into delusion for the sake of the delusion and nothing else, this would be a breach of trust. The purpose must therefore be educational in the sense that this allows the participant to be awakened by it. In other words, the instructor must provide what any participant does not have, namely increase their self-awareness. How can the instructor maintain the trust of the participant, without being compelled to give a specific or concrete answer?

Didactical degrees of the unforeseen (DDU) As part of our research, we have developed a principle tool to classify the degree of unforeseen (DDU) and unknown in a training program. Similarly completeness scales we find in the development and planning of military exercises, i.e. the extent to which the exercises should resemble the actual development of war and crisis. The variables here are like the number of staff functions including production personnel, materiel and logistics structure, complexity, extent and scope of exercise/ emergency situations and the time and duration of the exercise. A deployment and exercise that is not identical with a realistic production, is often called a "cadre exercise”. However, these models do not hold variables that indicate the unforeseen and unknown in the content itself, although often planned with both sudden and unforeseen events, often imposed stress increasing items.

Our model is based on three factors that will be particularly important as a basis for planning at the unexpected (PTU): (1) How familiar in advance the event which occurs is. This means that the situation has been trained earlier and rehearsed specific or fundamental solution procedures, either for individual coping or mastery in groups/teams. (2) Given time to prepare the handling of the situation. Here we assume also a kind of pyramid process, where the first line (the tip of the pyramid, those facing and have to deal with a sudden and possibly unknown event first, has the least time of preparation time. The next organizational segment like emergency management, will be able to get more metric preparation time, yet challenged 7

to act quickly in an unprepared situation according to their roles and overall responsibility. Down through the pyramid more actors are involved. In practice, also lines of communication, technology, and organizational structure to central and contributing factors in this process (Torgersen, 2008). (3) The extent to which the event has a gradient, with a familiar escalation. An unforeseen event will in practice always have some form of escalation, but this can be done without the emergency organization being aware of it or that the organization ignores signs. In connection with training and exercises, this will include identifying warning signs, barrier controls and assembly of characters possible prediction of events. This is also central to debrief and reflection after the completion of training. An unknown escalation, may effectively mean that the respective signs are not known or caught by the barrier and control systems (used here as a broad concept). The three didactic factors can be combined, but we have chosen five levels (table 1). Table 1. Overview Didactical Degrees of the Unforeseen (DDU) and three factors of Planning Training at the Unexpected (PTU). PTU factors Level of DDU (1) + (2) + (3) Total unknown No preparation No known escalation 0 Some known moves No preparation No known escalation 1 Several known moves No preparation No known escalation 2 Several known moves No preparation Some known escalation 3 Several known moves Preparation Known escalation 4 (nearly identical)

An experienced army staff officer in the Norwegian Armed Forces argues that DDU level 2 is the best approach to training staff officers and staffs, seen in relation to master the unforeseen and unknown situations (Torgersen, 2013). The staff officer, stated that based on his experience on previous drilled procedures and experiences and several matching conditions, enables the participant to handle the new situations better. This is explained partly based on that they handle new situations better when using rehearsed procedures. If they also recognize elements in the exercise that appear known, improved and more precise communication between the players is created. Overall, such a training model also creates a sense of achievement, which in turn provides necessary comfort and trust for innovation and creativity to solve problems that they have not exercised in the past. However, as we have previously explained, we believe that such an empirical assessment, has distinct features from a formal education oriented training model has clear weaknesses in relation to the exercise of the unforeseen and unknown. 8

The traditional and mystical Traditional education and training models have often a linear or relational structure (Torgersen & Steiro, 2009). The linear starts by describing what abilities that are needed or are best qualified to perform the actual tasks and what competences that there are needed or wanted to develop (Training Need Analysis and Objectives). Based on this training method an evaluation method is selected. The model can be conceptually expressed like figure 2 demonstrates.

Figure 2. Linear didactical planning model.

On the other hand, relational models do not necessarily begin with the targets, but look more holistically on training and the start of the planning can be i.e. competence premises for the participants before training targets are established.

Figure 3. Didactical relation thinking, where all factors are mutually dependent and are changed accordingly to each other. In both these models presented in figure 1 and 2, it is assumed a relatively clear and direct successive relationship between training content, methods and coping. The purpose of training is to master definable tasks. However, if the abilities and work tasks are not known, these traditional models fall short. Reason for this is that the other didactic factors like the choice of method, objectives and evaluation largely depends on the development of the required competencies. Didactic models for training for the unpredictable and unknown, must therefore involve other areas of pedagogy. Therefore, is there a need for educational policies that may 9

encompass areas of expertise with other structures than where knowledge objectives and situation and coping tasks are known in advance. The unknown can also be described as something mysterious, vague and uncertain. We believe that art pedagogy can provide a contribution to approach the models that can show the way of how training for the unforeseen and unknown best can be planned and organized. Faced with art, photo, or other form of expression, will direct a student (the observer) into a mystery - as Gabriel Honoré Marcel explains in his epistemology (Berg, 1969, Torgersen & Saeverot, 2012 a). In this mystery condition, reflection occurs with the use of self-knowledge from their own experience and expertise, but without scheduling this to specific procedures or solution methods. Prior knowledge and experience contributes to a more immediate and direct way to solve the mystery, the picture message. It opens up divergent mental processes and problem solving in which not the procedure and solution previously have been given. Situation, image observation, and the solution - the picture's message is unexpected and unknown. Training on and with such an approach cannot be achieved by practicing the solutions and procedures that are provided in advance. Therefore, this does not fit the aforementioned didactic planning models as these are subject to a known training content to prepare for defined tasks. Instead, we introduce the outlines of an indirect didactic model. It includes the principle of the didactic degree of the unforeseen and indirect education as exo-relational factors, i.e. factors that the traditional didactic factors should be weighed in against the planning, implementation and evaluation of training for unforeseen and unknown situations.

Figure 4. Indirect educational planning and design model that includes principles on didactic of the unforeseen and indirect pedagogy.

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Concluding remarks The degree of unforeseen training content will never be absolute clarified, but based on known or hypothetical scenarios. Nevertheless, an indirect approach to training the core, helps to ensure that learning takes place against the unknown. Such an exercise entails both training content and the way to practice being both unexpected and often unknown from previous training. Solutions or the right ways to act will not appear immediately but appears clearer after training through discussion and reflection.

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