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Permalink Reply by Ben Waller on July 15, 2009 at 3:26pm

One of the more challenging things with NIMS training is to make it interesting.
If you take a canned online course or a classroom course from an "I'm just here for the paycheck" instructor, yep, you'll be sleepy a few minutes into the first session.

If the instructor involves the class, gives pertinent examples, and sets up the exercises to simulate a call that the students might actually experience, it makes the class a lot more pertinent, interesting, and less sleep-inducing.

Remember, don't blame the class if it isn't as interesting as fire rolling out a window or an entrapment, or if it's not somehing you'll use in the next 5 minutes. NIMS isn't oriented toward short attentions spans, it's oriented toward common terminology, common standards, common operating practices, and interoperability at the regional and national levels.

If you ever experience a large incident involving an earthquake, a wildfire, a hurricane, or a terrorist attack, you'll be glad you stayed awake during your NIMS classes. If you didn't attend, or if you slept through the important parts, you're going to spend the first two days of the incident just trying to figure out what everyone else is talking about.

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Permalink Reply by blair4630 on July 20, 2009 at 9:52am

I had 100 and 700 for my full-time job. They are rough, for sure. I guess it's one of those things it's good to do once to be somewhat familiar with it, or at least aware of the process. But honestly, I'll be happy to never take either again. Mind numbing is a great term for these. I took them online (I am a big fan of instructor led, hands on classes 99% of the time) and glad I did because I can't imagine how much more painful that would have been without a few beers throughout the course. That was hands down the most boring class ever. And honestly, I have never been on an indicent that has set up anything like they talked about. Incident command has always been incident command, it seems like the Feds had to have it their way, so everyone followed suit. I know what will happen if my department is ever involved in a large incident, we'll get to scene and.......stand by for orders, same as we would if we never took the class.

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Permalink Reply by Tiffanie Pettis on July 23, 2009 at 5:42pm

NIMS is good training for beginners to understand some aspects of how we do what we do...but realy most of it is all common sence and it is long and borring!!! i agree...i love training and learning new skills, but i am a more hands-on training person rather than classroom type learning. i think that fire fighters should be evaluated more on knowing skills and preforming them than on reading a book, sitting through a lecture, and taking a written test. and the other problem i have with online testing is the fact that ...who can prove it u did it yourself or just had a buddy do it for you. ---team work isn't a bad thing when it comes to our field but there has to be basic common sence to go allong with the teamwork..............and yes you can get all the answers online to mostly every ff test

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