On Monday, I went solo, teaching the USACE EM 385-1-1, 40 hour Construction Safety Course. I truly enjoy it when there is interaction between the students and myself, and amongst the students themselves. As the presentation started each day throughout the week, I was comfortable with the safety slides that are similar to the slides in the 16-hour course. Basically the slides are not at all that different between the two safety courses.
Since I've been doing the 16-hour for a long while now. I'm very comfortable delivering the training. There are some specific safety topics on the 40-hour course that I am aware of, have experience, and knowledge. But have not had time in front of students, teaching the topics. This week gave me that opportunity to teach those topics.
I found myself this week, using more of my own experiences in construction to relate to the students on the different safety topics. After sitting down and reflecting what I have done throughout the years in Construction or General Industry, I realized have lots of experiences and stories to use in my trainings, especially in high hazards.
For this course and upcoming courses, I developed a new exam for the students. It is more challenging than the previous tests. The last 20 questions are actual pictures in the field. The students must identify the hazard(s) and/or safety violations in the picture to get the question correct. On the first 60 questions, they had to answer the questions from multiple choices and be able to cite the references from the EM 385-1-1 Safety Manual. They have to get both correct for the question to be counted.
This afternoon, all my students passed. They all learned. I don't know why I doubted myself, the last couple of months, on going solo on the 40-hour Construction Safety Course. The course went pretty good throughout the week.
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