Western Mining Safety &Health Training Resource Center: Translating Training to Competency Summary: Mine workers in the US sit through millions of hours of safety training each year but the training is often not as effective as it nees to be. Companies are increasingly focused on defining competencies for task training that will improve safety outcomes. Our objective is to translate training into improved safety and health competencies that will decrease the rate of fatalities, injuries, and illness in western mines. We have five aims: 1) We propose to network the best mine safety trainers to create a high-performing technical advisory committee to assist in writing training materials that use active learning and are based on competencies that will improve transfer of safety learning from the training room to the workplace. 2) We will run a high performance training clinic to train trainers to use these best practices and we will certify high performing trainers after they successfully pass an implementation program. 3) We will measure the effectiveness of the transfer of training knowledge to practice by developing a validated adult learning instrument. 4) We will also adapt our computer simulation software platform to measure safety competencies. 5) Our Mine Institute for Supervisor Leadership (MISL) will be modified to include competency training. All of our materials and training practices will accommodate English Language Learners, low literacy learners, and education disadvantaged learners (e.g. dyslexia). We will have a particular focus on serving the needs of small and medium sized mines. Our outcomes include 6 deliverables: 1) We will define competencies for high-performing trainers and issue a certificate in conjunction with the International Society of Mine Safety Professionals for trainers that have completed our training and met the implementation criteria. 2) We will run a high-performance training clinic to increase the number and quality of trainers. 3) We will produce instructor and student manuals for new miner and annual refresher training that implement the very best practices for active learning and that will result in better transfer of the safety knowledge to the workplace. 4) We will create new serious games based on fatalgrams and mine inspections to test safety competencies. 5) We revise the MISL with additional competency modules. Our impacts will be: 1) an increased number of highly effective trainers in the Western US that meet a recognized level of competency;2) an increased number of miners who are better able to translate their training knowledge to competent practices in the workplace;3) better access to high quality training for small and medium sized companies and for education disadvantaged miners;4) improved safety record for Western mines.
Western Mining Safety &Health Training Resource Center: Translating Training to Competency Narrative: The proposed center will translate training into improved safety and health competencies that will decrease the rate of fatalities, injuries, and illness in western mines. The center will develop state-of-art training materials for new miner and annual refresher training with the aid of some of the best trainers in the Western US, train trainers with a high performance training clinic, certify high performance trainers, develop a validated evaluate instrument for training efficacy, create serious games to test competency, and train supervisors to be better safety leaders.
