Five years ago Stuart, one of our directors, was involved in discussions with the HSE on how eLearning in first aid would work. The group (a precursor to the First Aid Quality Partnership) set a standard of ⅓ eLearning and ⅔ practical.
We have therefore been using eLearning for several years to run Blended FAW courses with one day eLearning and two days of practical skills. Our clients include some major organisations and Universities, who love the flexibility this gives them.
We have now expanded our blended eLearning system to cover much more theory than before. This now gives you the ability to run courses for 12 students in a ‘COVID-safe’ manner. Students complete the course theory online and then attend your centre in groups of 6 to undertake the practical skills. In two contact days you can train 12 students safely, to a very high standard and make more money doing it.
We believe the time is right to change the way we teach first aid at work. It’s time to move to a COVID safe blended approach with greatly increased eLearning.
Since COVID-19 a lot has changed. In particular people are happier with video calls and eLearning in general. Others have already moved to 50/50 for eLearning/practical on FAW requalifications.
However, COVID19 has disrupted our industry and how we work. We have identified several problems talking to training providers:
We started by tearing apart the FAW syllabus and looking at how long the skills actually take. We found that the practical sessions take just one day, with time to spare for scenarios, if all theory is taught by pre-course eLearning.
In order to cover two full days of a FAW course any eLearning must be comprehensive and interactive.
Our eLearning actually takes students two days to complete. It is also fully interactive using video, cartoons, interactive video, text and pictures. This gives plenty of variety for all types of learner. If a student gets a question wrong they are not just sent back to ‘try again’, but told why they got it wrong, and given more information, often in a different way.
We have tested this new way of running courses with staff in a couple of universities. The staff were of varied backgrounds: from cleaners and security staff to lab technicians and academics. Of those that had taken a FAW course before, 75% thought the course was better than their previous course and 25% thought it was the same. No one thought the course was worse, nor that the eLearning couldn’t replace the two days normally covered in class.
Students on these test courses said:
Brilliant online material, videos and animated videos!”
“Very good and comfortable under the COVID situation, I learned the same as I normally would.”
“I enjoyed the course and found it very useful. I liked having the flexible time to complete the online elements of the course and thought the in-person aspect was well delivered with plenty of time to practice the practical skills with lots of instructor supervision.”
Firstly you sign up your students by sending us a list of names and email addresses.
Your students receive an email from the system containing a link to log into the iLearnFirstAid virtual learning environment.
Students complete 12 hrs of eLearning covering all of the subjects of first aid at work. There is a wide variety of activities, from videos to different interactive exercises.Students are tested along the way with questions. If they get a question wrong, they don’t simply get sent back to ‘try again’ but are given detailed information about “why” their answer was wrong.
We can tell how long students took to take the eLearning, and you can log in as a tutor and check this too, along with what they got wrong. just leaving a window open doesn’t count – they need to be actually working!
At the end of the eLearning students take a pre-course quiz. You are emailed to say they have completed this and can now attend the classroom session.
Your students arrive on the day with all the theoretical knowledge of first aid completed. They sit socially distanced with a max of 6 per day.
You mark their attendance in the eLearning. This makes the final course exam visible.
You work through the practical skills of first aid, demonstrating skills, and allowing students time to practice with a partner/mannikin. After giving students sufficient practice time you assess them.
At the end of the day students attempt the final exam in learning. This can be done on a phone, tablet of laptop. We can give you a QR code that you can put into your presentation which takes them straight to the right page.
Students complete a QA form online too. This saves handling any potentially contaminated paperwork.
For a small extra fee students can instantly receive an eCertificate as soon as their course is completed. The validity of this certificate can be verified by clicking a link on the certificate
This works exactly the same as for FAW course. The eLearning is shorter and covers just the subjects of the eFAW course.
The split between theory and practical is 50:50.
Rather than having all of the 12 students in the classroom for the whole day you split the group into two groups of 6, one morning and one in the afternoon.
In the 3 hour practical sessions you apply the skills covered online and run through all of the skills of the eFAW course. You then repeat this session in the afternoon.
.Of those that had taken a FAW course before thought this blended course was better than their previous course.
Of those that had taken a FAW course before thought it was the same as their previous course.
No one who had taken a course before thought this was worse than their previous course
