CTO – Communications Training Officer

This communication training program is adapted from the Field Training Officers Program and is intended to develop fully trained dispatchers.

The program duration may vary from agency to agency. However, the phases are consistent, with three training and an evaluation phase.

How do people learn?

• People learn best by listening, doing and observing.

• The general purpose of instruction is to help the student learn.

• Perception is the basis of all learning.

Habits and Transfer:

• Performance habits are formed by developing perceptions and combining them into insights.

• Development of more complicated tasks thru habits formed doing simpler tasks is called transfer.

Levels of Learning:

• There are three levels of learning: repeating back information, understanding what one has been taught, finally, the ability to make associations and apply what one has been taught.

Rates of Learning:

• Learning of new tasks is rapid at first, then slows as the student continues to make associations and accumulate knowledge.