It’s the taking part that counts

Health and safety is a serious subject but it doesn’t have
to be dull and boring. Simple teaching practices that use
active learning can make a big difference to staff
engagement, argues David Towlson

The benefits of active or
participative learning (where
the student is far more involved
in the learning process) have been
known for some time. Active learning is
all about engaging and motivating
students, developing a rapport with
them. However, student participation
doesn’t in itself necessarily aid learning.

It has to be meaningful, have a learning
point and be clearly outlined.

For example, although there is a lot to be
said for ‘discovery learning’ – where
students are thrown into a scenario to
work out for themselves what is going on
– if a learner doesn’t understand what is
expected, or has insufficient background
knowledge to even start to tackle a task, it
can actually have a negative impact on
learning, especially in terms of
motivation. This is why being attentive to
those students who may be struggling,
getting and giving feedback and adapting
strategy accordingly are essential
ingredients of good teaching. Outlined
below are some tried and tested active
learning techniques.

Models
In the absence of the real thing, building
models is a very useful tool. For instance,
when teaching about the use of personal
samplers to measure airborne
contaminants in the workplace, students
can be asked to build a model using a
variety of components. I use individualsized
cardboard breakfast cereal packets
to make the sampling pump, clear plastic
tubing and pop-up bottle tops for the
sampling head, and name tags, blu-tack
and other bits for pinning the sampling
head to the chest.

The model takes only a few minutes to
make and can then be used to aid a
follow-up activity working out what can
go wrong with the pumps and what is
important to get right. It turns a dull
lecture into a more memorable and fun
learning experience.

To get a little closer to the real thing,
harness the power of smart phones and
tablet PC apps. For example, there are
several surprisingly accurate simple
sound level meter apps for the iPad and
iPhone. Making a noise source (a battery
connected to a driven piezo
transducer/buzzer) is cheap and easy.

Students can then experiment with
measuring the noise level and seeing the
effect of multiple sources, distance and
different types of barriers (like a
cardboard box over the buzzer).

Teaching legislation
To illustrate how health and safety
legislation is created and developed, try
this exercise: start with two separate
groups that each create an initial draft
piece of legislation (give them a topic).

They then swap and refine. Breaking the
task down into chunks and reminding
students that time is up on a particular
chunk makes the discussions and debate
snappy and clarifies the relationship
between the exercise and how real
legislation is developed. If the legislation
had merely been described, it would not
have the same impact and people would
stop listening.

Videos are often viewed as passive
resources, but they don’t have to be. If it is
a dramatisation, people become
immersed in the story and remember it.

But even if the video is inherently dull,
you can improve attention by keeping the
video short, asking students to look for
things during it, and answering questions
afterwards.

Over the years I have experimented
using the ‘jigsaw method’. There are many
ways to do it but one way is to divide
students into three groups. I provide each
group with a summary of a different set
of legislation (each set has some
similarities and some differences). The
teams then each spend five to ten minutes
becoming ‘experts’ in their subject by
reading, discussing, adding and
highlighting. Students are then split into
just two groups that each has at least one
‘expert’ for each piece of legislation, to
tackle a joint task, filling in a matrix
identifying concepts that are common to
all sets of legislation and items that are
unique.

The students quickly learn that all they
need to learn is what is common and
then a few exceptions. Each group
summarises their findings at the end. The
ensuing discussions, debate, questioning,
thinking, teacher observation and
feedback mean that students actually
begin to understand the thrust of the
legislation rather than trying to learn
unconnected facts.

In conclusion, my advice to trainers is:
add variety, try something new,
experiment, and watch it transform your
lessons. Remember also that activities can
be tiring for students, so don’t use
activities exclusively. There’s nothing
wrong with a little lecturing as part of the
mix (in moderation).

David Towlson is director of training at
RRC Training