Situational Awareness Matters Academy
Syllabus
Welcome to the Situational Awareness Academy. This syllabus will provide you with an overview of the Academy and be familiarized with the academy format. You will also be provided with some tips for how to get the most out of this course.
Academy Objective
The Academy shares the content of two nationally recognized safety programs designed to improve your understanding of situational awareness and decision making under stress. Through 2013, the live version of this Academy has been presented to more than 35,000 students working in public safety, aviation, medicine, military, business and industry.
While the program was originally designed to improve the safety of first responders, the content has proven to be universally applicable to anyone who works in high stress, high consequence, and time-compressed environments.
Limited Time Access
Basic and Plus members have access to the Academy content for 90 days. Depending on how much time you spend with the additional reading materials it should take about 1-2 hours to complete each of the 14 Modules.
Copyright
All the content of the Academy is copyright-protected and cannot be reproduced in any form without the express written consent of the Gasaway Consulting Group, LLC.
Individual Memberships - No sharing policy
Academy memberships are individual and access is not to be shared with others. You will be allowed to access the Academy from two computers (IP Addresses). WARNING: We do monitor access to the academy and if it is deemed that the "no sharing" policy is being violated, you are subject to having your Academy membership cancelled without a refund.
Academy Levels
There are two options of Academy membership for you to choose from:
Academy Basic: This level provides access to the Academy video instructional content and links to supporting content on the Situational Awareness Matters website.
PRICE: $99.99
Academy Plus. In addition to all the content of the Academy Basic, members of Academy Plus will be shipped four books. These books will be referenced throughout the Academy.
PRICE: $199.99
The star symbol you see below denotes content that is for Academy Plus members.
Upgrade to Academy Plus
Academy Basic members can upgrade to Academy Plus at any time by clicking the “Upgrade my membership” Buy Button. Once you upgrade to Academy Plus the reference books will be shipped to you and the clock will reset on your 90-day access.
Reference Books
The four reference books (a $189 value) are provided for Academy Plus members:
Situational Awareness Matters Volume 1 (a $39.99 retail value)
Situational Awareness Matters Volume 2 (a $39.99 value)
Situational Awareness for Emergency Response (a $59 value)
Fireground Command Decision Making (a $49.99 value)
NOTE: Anyone can purchase any of these books separate from the academy by visiting the SAMatters store (clickable “Store” link below the banner at the top of the page).
Navigation
Once you access the academy you will see clickable boxes for each academy module. Each click will open a new browser window so your previous location will be maintained in the old window. This same is true for all the clickable links within each module.
Video performance
This Academy uses embedded video using JW Player. If you have a slow or weak Internet connection, the videos may stutter or pause. This is not an indication of poor video quality. It is a problem with the Internet connection.
All HTML5 and Flash features of JW Player are fully supported on Chrome, Firefox, IE9, Safari, and Opera. The only exception is if a browser itself doesn’t support a particular feature (ex: MP4 playback on Firefox). All features of JW Player are supported on IE8 as well.IE10 is currently not supported by JW Player.
Technical support
If you have any technical issues with the Academy, contact us at:
Gasaway Consulting Group, LLC
1769 Lexington Avenue North, Suite 177
St. Paul, Minnesota 55113-6522 USA
612-548-4424
Academy Outline
Module 1: Introduction to the Academy
In this module you will receive an overview of the academy and be familiarized with the academy format. You will also be provided with some tips for how to get the most out of this course.
Module 2: Stress and performance
In this module you will be provided with the opportunity to learn about stress – both good and bad – and the impact stress can have on your performance while working in high risk, high consequence environments.
Module 3:Decision making
In this module we will discuss the process for decision making. You will be introduced to the traditional decision making process and learn about the Recognition-Primed Decision Making process discovered by decision researcher, Dr. Gary Klein, while working with fireground commanders in Cleveland, Ohio.
Module 4:Barriers to situational awareness – an introduction
In this module you will learn about what situational awareness is and how it is developed. You will be introduced to the research being conducted on situational awareness, including a model for developing situational awareness in dynamic environments developed by my colleague, Dr. Mica Endsley. You will also be introduced to the barriers that challenge situational awareness.
Module 5: Staffing barriers
In this module you will be introduced to staffing as a barrier to situational awareness. You may recall from previous lessons that barriers draw your attention away from critical clues and cues. This module explores how the quantity and quality of staffing can impact situational awareness.
Module 6: Communications barriers
In this module you will learn about how communications can impact situational awareness. The human species has the ability to do something no other creature on earth can do – communicate in complex ways. This is one of the greatest assets of our species and likely contributed to our ability to dominate the planet. However, this also means we can engage in complex miscommunications and this can cause big problems, especially in dynamically changing environments where communication between individuals and teams often occurs while being physically separated.
Module 7: Workload barriers
In this module you will be introduced to the challenges of workload barriers that impact situational awareness. Oftentimes in high consequence, dynamically changing environments the workload is heavy and time constraints leave people feeling the need to multitask. We will explore how this can have significant consequences to situational awareness.
Module 8: Human factor barriers
In this module you will learn about human factors. Human factors are some of the most challenging of all situational awareness barriers because some of the factors are easier to identify than to control. For example, we hallucinate and we do it all the time. The problem is, we’re not aware we do it. Human factors is a topic of intense research. This module introduces you to some of the human factors that can impact your situational awareness.
Module 9: Attention management barriers
In this module we will discuss the challenges of attention management. We will share how you pay attention to things and how various stimuli in your environment can rob you of your situational awareness. Some of the things you pay attention to are obvious and intentional. Other things you pay attention to are so automatic that you may not even be aware your attention is being drawn off task.
Module 10: Mission and goals barriers
In this module we will discuss the role that mission and goals play in the formation of situational awareness and how important it is to be on the same page with co-workers. This unit will also discuss challenges with creating a unified mission and consequences that can be created when the mission is unclear or non-existent.
Module 11: Shared mental model barriers
In this module we will discuss what mental models are and why they are so important in the development of situational awareness. We will also discuss some of the challenges created when mental models don’t fit the current situation.
Module 12: Teamwork barriers
In this module we will discuss shared situational awareness and the importance of ensuring team members have a common operating picture – sometimes called a “shared frame” or “being on the same page.” While individual situational awareness is critically important, it is equally important that team members share a common understanding of what is happening and what potential risks lay on the horizon.
Module 13: Best practices
In this module we will discuss best practices for developing and maintaining situational awareness. In the previous modules we discussed the barriers that challenge situational awareness. Here, best practices are shared for how to prevent, or overcome, many of the challenges.
It is important to keep in mind that some of the barriers (like human factors) may not be correctable. For example, the human brain can make things up without your conscious awareness (such as hallucinations and confabulations). So, unfortunately, not everything that flaws situational awareness has a solution.
Bonus Content
Here we will share valuable situational awareness content that may not have conveniently fit into one of the other modules. We will also share a comprehensive list of references that were used while conducting the original scientific research on the barriers that challenge situational awareness and the references used in the development of this Academy. As they are developed, this section willinclude additional checklists and downloads of valuable situational awareness materials, including outlines and note guides from the live programs.