How was your School Experience

[sdaileyemt]

I am taking EMT-B through Delta College and EMSTI. Now NO disrespect to ANY instructors if they read this because I have all the respect in the WORLD to you guys! but the class it self is a cluster :censored::censored::censored::censored:. We have 2 main instructors. One teaches us his way and the test way and then another who dose the same. So we are being taught 3 different ways and have NO idea which one to go by!

Then we have skills two out of the 3 days a week for 3 hours with 4 instructors who ALL teach you something different and its confusing as sin! We have open book tests every Tuesday which are all worded extremely weird so that throws us off. Then theres the rest of time LECTURE a damn powerpoint. Were the students(the college kids for the credit and the what if people) throw the instructors off subject ALL DAY! So we will spend like 3 hours on something simple because it keeps going off subject!

And then there is students who are the for the college credits so there is no discipline sometimes you have people talking over the teacher and what not. And from what I herd all over EMT programs you have uniforms. Now me personally I wear one because I feel like more the part if that makes since.

Now I know most of my stuff because I took the class last year and it was not like this I was only taking as a refresher but am now going to drop it. I just thought I would see if this is normal of an EMT class or if we are just a unorganized cluster :censored::censored::censored::censored: I thought.

Also on a side note we were supposed to get skills sheets and ER Rotation packs on day one still have not got skills and ER we had to special request them.

 

[DrankTheKoolaid]

re

Ummm did you just say your EMT class is giving open book tests?

 

[rescue99]

Hopefully your experience will improve. If there is a policy (and there should be) for making concerns known, follow it. It is the lead instructors responsibility to maintain a productive flow in the classroom as well as see to it that all of his/her proctors are qualified, accurate and most of all....consistant.

 

[Ridryder911]

Most EMT classes are objective base. In other words, one is given a set of objectives and the test comes from those. NHTSA must be followed as a minimum but hopefully one will add to the curriculum. I do ask why is one being taught by so many? As well, I can understand lab assistants but do you not use standardized check lists for skills?

Hence the reason for standardized teaching. Unfortunately, it appears there is a lack of communication and I would talk to the Dean or Division Chairperson, after you talk to the lead instructor. They may not realize the disarray of what is occurring.

R/r 911

 

[phabib]

I was in a good program. They spent a large chunk of the first week dispelling misconceptions about EMS and weeding out bad students. A lot of people dropped the courses in that first week and got their money back. After that it was mostly dedicated students.

my proffesors did a great job with the class. All handouts were given to us in print and on a CD so we could print another at home if we lost ours. All tests were graded and returned by the next class.

 

[sdaileyemt]

YA OPEN BOOK! And there is a set skills sheet I am sure it is the same it is the NR one but we have not gotten it instructors have it just don't use it lol. I am getting a group to go to the dean. Me personally am dropping. I was using it as a refresher and is NO help. It is sad but what can you do? When i was at AMR doing my ride time EVERYONE had nothing but bad to say about the school from Medics who assisted with skills and were never paid to medics who like me disagree with the teaching formats.

We have two main Instructors one MAIN MAIN instructor but he is a full time FF and coaches his daughters Softball so he is gone ALOT so we are left with an old washed up Medic, Who really just shoots the stuff teaches a LITTLE but is a lot of joking. Then on skills days about 4 to 5 instructors one for each skill.

 

[WuLabsWuTecH]

Yeah there is something wrong with that. We had a main instructor and about 5 or 6 other instructors, but everything was well organized.

Open book tests should not be encouraged...

 

[phabib]

Open book tests should not be encouraged...

What are you talking about? No one needs to actually know what to do in an emergency situation. /end sarcasm


To the OP: I agree with Rid. You should escalate this. You're there to get an education and there is no reason this should be happening. Get your money's worth.

 

[JPINFV]

Open book tests should not be encouraged...

It really depends on how the test is structured. A properly based open book/open notes test (anyone who's taken college level physics sequence knows what I mean) testing conceptual understanding and application should be fine. Most EMT-B testing is not done in this style and is definitely not suited for open book/notes.

 

[MMiz]

It is my personal experience as an educator that students do worse on open book exams compared to traditional closed-book exams. I would not use an open book test in order to assess mastery.

Open book exams definitely have their place in education, but they also justify sloppy teaching. Educators that gives all open book exams sometimes justify poor student achievement by saying "BUT YOU HAD THE BOOK!" In reality, during an open book exam a book should really act as a means to confirm an answer.

 

[Melclin]

We've had a few of the problems you mentioned. To add to that alot of us felt that there were 100 opinions out there, we were taught 10 of them and 1 would be on the final exam.

The problem was that a lot of the instructors and guest lecturers were not quite in touch with the latest best practice as the university saw it, so there were subtle differences in approach. Things like DR-ABCD(defib)-H compared to DR-ABC-D(disability)E. It was great to have the difference of opinion from a learning point of view because it forces us to go out there and investigate issues for ourselves, but its frustrating trying to find the right answer for the test, especially when the questions are poorly written.

Writing exam questions is a highly complex business and when you get medics who come off the street to teach a class faced with having to prepare an exam you get some terrible quality questions. For us in a bachelors degree, we are being taught by people who, while they did degree conversions and often have masters/Ph.D, they were never actually proper academic undergrads, so they don't really know how to handle classes, disseminate information, prepare curricula, write exams etc.