Featured Instructor Interview: Scriven King

We recently sat down with November’s Featured Instructor, Scriven King, to discuss his course and his thoughts on Operations Security. When he’s not at Law Enforcement Learning, you can find him blogging at The Security Dialogue or tweeting at @scrivenlking. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:

Law Enforcement Learning: Tell us about your course.

King: Practical Operations Security Applications for Criminal Investigations and Private Security is a course designed for both novice and experienced operations security (OPSEC) practitioners. We will discuss the ways in which law enforcement and public and private sector security organizations can protect their operations, resources, and most importantly, personnel by denying their respective adversaries knowledge of their intentions and capabilities. Then, we will define what OPSEC is, how we determine what critical information needs to be protected, and how to deny that information from getting to our adversaries.

Law Enforcement Learning: Why do law enforcement & security professionals need this information?

King: The worlds of security and law enforcement have become increasingly intertwined in both theory and practice.  As such, each has information about their operations that cannot be made readily available to the public at-large.  With multiple vectors of communication becoming publicly apparent, as professionals, our clients and the public’s safety depends on our ability to be discreet while conducting our operations.  This is a lesson learned tragically through active shooter scenarios targeting mass gathering locations, first responders and security officers.

Law Enforcement Learning: Why should they get this information from you?

King: I have over a decade’s worth of protecting various assets ranging from the personal security of a senior General officer to special events attended by over 5,000 people.  Each of these scenarios provided me an opportunity to learn how vital good operations security practices are.  I also performed my duties in the public eye on an almost daily basis. In that, I saw firsthand how easy it would be to have critical information disclosed and the importance of ensuring that never happened. I also have numerous years conducting various criminal investigations ranging from homicides to shoplifting.  As you’re aware, investigators also perform their duties in the public eye and also require great discretion in order to be successful.  All of these experiences have prepared me to not only be a practitioner of OPSEC but also pass on what has helped me be successful in applying it.

Law Enforcement Learning: If people are interested in this subject, where can they go for more?

King: There are several places people can go to learn more about OPSEC.  While I am a good resource, there are others who I also consider experts:

http://www.opsecprofessionals.org/

http://grugq.tumblr.com

https://www.ioss.gov/

If you are interested in learning more about OPSEC, protecting your data, and improving your operations, check out King’s Practical Operations Security Applications for Criminal Investigations and Private Security – it’s open now!

The Law Enforcement Learning Team

 

The First Fifty Courses: Trends & Thoughts

Since our launch in mid-August, we’ve assisted in the design of over fifty courses currently live or in development on the site. Through this process, we’ve gained some insight into instructor design preferences, and have recognized a few interesting trends in the areas of structure, pricing, and audience. Here are some quick thoughts on how current instructors and designers are dealing with those issues:

1. Course Structure: When we designed the site, we wanted to provide instructors the flexibility to build college-style, instructor-led courses or automated courses that minimized their own involvement. We anticipated that instructors would select one of the types (we thought the instructor-led style would be the most popular option) and then design their course. We did not predict what many instructors have devised and implemented: the hybrid Open course offering. This style of course combines the Open course format with occasional instructor involvement. In several instances, instructors have developed Open courses that allow students to move through all course content at their own pace and then assessed students’ performance by including an instructor-graded final project at the end of the course. In other instances, instructors have included several instructor-graded assignments throughout the Open course; this ensures students receive feedback on multiple occasions from the instructor and gives the instructor confidence that students understand and can apply course concepts. Whatever their design, these hybrid Open courses combine the flexibility of self-paced instruction with the effectiveness of direct student-instructor contact and offer a great design solution for instructors who do not have time to monitor every aspect of a multi-week course but wish to directly interact with and assess every student in their course offering.

2. Course Pricing: With a few large exceptions, instructors appear to be relying on the prices of their existing in-person courses as they develop pricing strategies. According to dozens of instructors, distance learning versions of their in-person courses have several advantages that they consider when setting prices:

  • No associated travel, per diem, or registration costs
  • Perpetual access to course information upon purchase
  • Direct and unlimited contact with instructors
  • Rich and varied content

With these aspects in mind, most instructors are choosing to price their Law Enforcement Learning courses at or slightly higher than their in-person analogues. This replicates pricing strategies currently observed in the higher education market, and suggests that students and departments will generate cost savings on ancillary expenses rather than from direct tuition breaks.

3. Course Audience: In most cases, instructors are choosing to limit content to verified law enforcement personnel. This limits a course’s potential audience, but increases information and tactics security. It’s been a great experience to work on our first fifty courses and we’re moving quickly toward our goal of hosting all of the best law enforcement and security content.

As we continue to assist instructors and observe trends, we’ll keep you informed of the great ideas and techniques we see instructors using. It’s an exciting time in law enforcement training, and we can’t wait for you to see some of the incredible courses instructors are currently building on the site. Check back soon for more thoughts, and head over to the Learn page to see what you can sign up for right now.

The Law Enforcement Learning Team

Distance Learning: The Learning Case

*This post is the second in a multi-part series on the effectiveness of online learning.

A significant body of research indicates online learning is more effective than in-person learning at achieving identified performance outcomes. While this conclusion may surprise readers accustomed to the in-person training environment, thousands of studies conducted over the past two decades suggest students who participate in online learning perform modestly better than those who receive in-person instruction. In this short post, we’ll summarize major research findings on the topic and opine on the information’s relevance to the law enforcement training world. Although training and education have different objectives, with training focused on ensuring students can complete some hands-on skill and education focused on ensuring students retain and understand some concept, the online delivery method is often appropriate in both contexts. This has positive implications for law enforcement and security training professionals, and indicates online courses are suitable for many law enforcement and security topics.

The Research

1. In a 2010 meta-analysis of more than one thousand online learning studies commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education, researchers examined twelve years of research literature comparing online and in-person learning. Systematic examinations of the literature resulted in several key findings in support of online education. Most notably, the research indicated students who took all or part of their course online performed better, on average, than those taking the same course through traditional face-to-face instruction. In addition to this conclusion, researchers also highlighted these key findings:

  • The effectiveness of online learning approaches appears quite broad across different content and learner types.

  • Elements such as video or online quizzes do not appear to influence the amount that students learn in online classes.

  • Online learning can be enhanced by giving learners control of their interactions with media and prompting learner reflection.

  • When groups of students are learning together online, support mechanisms such as guiding questions generally influence the way students interact, but not the amount they learn.

2. In another meta-analysis, Schachar & Neumann (2003) reviewed data from eighty-six studies involving over 15,000 students and reached similar conclusions. The authors compared the differences between the academic performances of students in distance education courses relative to those enrolled in traditional settings, and determined that students enrolled in online courses outperformed traditional students in two thirds of cases. Based on this result, the authors opined that distance learning is an effective form of instruction and questioned the value of face-to-face instruction for some students.

3. In a controlled experiment, Neuhauser (2002) compared two sections of the same course, one online and one in-person. The sections used the same instructor, same content, and same assessments, and the comparison found the online section received slightly higher final grades. Additionally, 96% of the online students gave feedback indicating they found the course as or more effective to their learning than their typical face-to-face course.

4. The 2008 National Survey of Student Engagement, a yearly report based on feedback from 380,000 randomly selected first ­year and senior students at 722 US colleges and universities, reported this key finding:

“Students taking most of their classes online report more deep approaches to learning in their classes, relative to classroom-­based learners. Furthermore, a larger share of online learners reported very often participating in intellectually challenging course activities.”

5. Australian researchers Freeman and Capper found no differences in learning outcomes between business students participating in role simulations either face-to-face or asynchronously over distance.

6. Blackley and Curran-Smith found distance students in a nursing program performed as well in the field as their in-person counterparts, while Nesler and Lettus identified nurses who graduated from an online program rated higher on on clinical competence than nurses who studied in an in-person program.

The Impact on Law Enforcement & Security Training

While this is simply a tiny sample of the large amount of data related to the efficacy of online learning, it suggests that online delivery methods are as good or better than traditional in-person classes. Furthermore, the huge body of research on this topic suggests that online courses are good for information retention AND skill performance; with online students receiving higher grades, rating courses as more effective, performing as well in role-playing exercises, and outperforming in person peers at specific job tasks, it’s evident online courses are appropriate in both training and education contexts. For law enforcement and security professionals who exist in a profession where application is an essential component of effective training, this research means that it is possible to design online interactions that enable students to practice skills, become competent at those skills, and even master those skills. If a course is well-designed with specific and measurable learning objectives and it includes opportunities for students to practice behaviors and analyze their results, students will be able to learn and replicate skills.

The evidence above is clear: online students obtain information and learn practical skills at a rate equal to or greater than their in-person counterparts. For law enforcement and security instructors, online courses can deliver application-based skills to officers efficiently and effectively; while law enforcement training is almost exclusively conducted in in-person forums, this data suggests trainers should be taking advantage of online delivery mechanisms that enable them to deliver information, encourage application, and inspire learning much better than traditional educational methods.

Blackley, J.A., & Curran-Smith, J. (1998). Teaching community health nursing by distance methods: development, process, and evaluation. Journal of Continuing Education for Nurses, 29 (4), 148-153.

Nesler, M.S., & Lettus, M. K. (1995). A follow-up study of external degree graduates from Florida. Paper presented at the 103rd Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, New York, August.

Reporting Features: We Need Your Thoughts!

In our first month of operation, we’ve received some great feedback about the site’s features, design, and capabilities. Through this process, we’ve identified several areas for expansion, most notably in the area of reporting features. It’s clear instructors need a way to extract data from their Law Enforcement Learning courses for use by department training managers, supervisors, or other individuals involved in the learning process. As such, we’ve started to design reporting features that enable instructors to pull data from their Law Enforcement Learning courses and distribute that data to interested parties. At this part in the design phase, we’d love your thoughts on exactly what information is necessary to extract from the website and present to observers. Is it student progress? Or test and quiz scores? Or engagement with curriculum modules? Or a combination of everything?

As we designed and created Law Enforcement Learning, we consulted with a variety of law enforcement and security professionals and trainers and integrated their thoughts into the site. Doing so made Law Enforcement Learning more functional and better able to fill the needs of the law enforcement and security communities. We’ll continue to gather feedback from our users, and will build this reporting capability according to the needs of instructors, training managers, and others involved in the education process. To let us know what kind of information you’d like to be able to extract from your Law Enforcement Learning courses, send us a message at support@lawenforcementlearning.com and outline what kind of reports you’d like to be able to run from your courses. We’re looking forward to your thoughts, and will follow up soon with the results we’ve received.

The Law Enforcement Learning Team

Video Production with Todd Boruff

A great Law Enforcement Learning course combines a variety of content delivery methods to deliver a varied, engaging learning experience to students. In many courses videos can increase engagement, help instructors connect with students, and present content in a dynamic and interesting manner. We’ve designed Law Enforcement Learning with the knowledge that high-quality video and audio recording tools are extremely common; from cellular telephones that record HD video to DSLR cameras capable of capturing professional-level pictures or high-quality webcams, most potential instructors likely possess the equipment they need to record good videos for their courses.

For those instructors who do not have easy access to recording equipment, courses that require in-depth demonstrations and complicated re-enactments, or individuals who wish to deliver professional-level videos, Law Enforcement Learning offers a host of video recording and production services from producer and consultant Todd Boruff. Boruff is a South Bend, Indiana, based video producer and consultant with a decade of professional video and audio experience. He holds a BA in film from the University of Notre Dame and a certificate in audio engineering from The Recording Workshop. He’s worked on independent films, documentaries, television and radio commercials, music albums, live audio mixing and recording, theater sound design, corporate video, and a major motion picture. Most of Todd’s career has been spent on non-broadcast video: promotional, development, marketing, and training videos for corporate, medical, educational, religious, non-profit, and political clients. He’s also worked on training videos for major retail, diabetes care, eye care, and higher education.  Todd is highly experienced in directing on-camera talent and producing step-by-step demonstrations with voice-over narration.

If you are struggling with recording your videos, need some professional advice, or simply want an experienced video producer to handle setup and recording so you can focus on content, consider hiring a professional producer. You can probably find one in your town or, if you feel Todd’s training and education background would improve your video, schedule a consultation or a shoot with him. Here’s a breakdown of the services he can provide:

1. Video Production:

  • $1000 per 10 hour day, plus travel expenses.
  • This includes professional lighting, audio, camera, and talent direction: everything you need to for a high-quality training video.

2. Video Post-production:

  • $75/hour.  Number of hours varies by project
  • Note: You have the option of shooting the video yourself and then sending the footage to Todd for professional editing, graphics, music, and delivery of the final video file.

3. Skype/Facetime live direction:

  • $100/hour.
  • Show Todd your setup live while you are recording it and he can direct you as far as camera and lighting placement, talent direction, etc.

4. Consultation:

  • $75/hour.
  • You answer a number of questions about your needs and capabilities and Todd provides a custom recommendation.  This could include recommendations for cameras, tripods, lighting, audio, editing software, and other equipment.  It could include looking at videos you have already produced and providing advice on how to improve them.  It could be how to get the most out of the equipment or resources that you already have.

If you’d like to see some of Todd’s work, check him out here: http://www.toddboruff.com/. Finally, if you are interested in arranging a consultation or discussion with Todd, email us at support@lawenforcementlearning.com and we’ll make it happen. Good luck!

The Law Enforcement Learning Team

Course Development Thoughts with James Keck

We recently spoke with James Keck, a Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness instructor at Virginia Commonwealth University, about designing and instructing distance learning courses. Keck teaches in-person and distance learning courses focused on safety and security issues, so he understands how the online medium helps and challenges law enforcement and security instructors. During the discussion, we asked him to offer some advice to new distance learning designers and instructors, and he stressed these two main points:

1. Design is the most essential component of a successful course. When putting together a course, instructors must identify learning objectives, tasks, and expected outcomes. They must consider these factors, and then project how a student is likely to react to the experience, engagement, and material that the course presents. If the projection results in the expected outcome, then the course’s design is appropriate.

In his comments on design, Keck is really saying that a good course requires planning, consistency between the material and the results of the material, and methods of determining that students are retaining information. When you plan your course, this starts with identifying specific course objectives. These objectives, which you can usually capture with three or four bullet points, describe what a student will take away from the course. Here’s a good way to craft your objectives – write your course introduction paragraph and, for the last sentence, include this: “After completing this course, students will be able to:” then list the top few things your material will enable students to accomplish. This list is likely your learning objectives. Once you’ve identified those objectives, you’ll have to design your course to make sure you broadcast enough information for students to understand, analyze, and apply those objectives. According to Keck, this starts with experience, continues with assessment, and ends with practical application. In most circumstances, this means you must provide material to your students, test them on their comprehension with quizzes and other academic exercises, and then give them application opportunities.

2. Instructors must keep students engaged in order to successfully transfer information. Books alone can present information – instructors must maintain students’ attention and keep them engaged. Using real examples of experiences students can relate to is a great way to connect material with students and increase the chances they will retain information.

Engagement is another hugely important piece to a successful course. In instructor-led offerings, ‘engagement’ typically refers to student-instructor interactions, student-student interactions, and student-content interplay. To foster engagement in your instructor-led offerings, consider integrating live events, asynchronous discussion boards, and other opportunities to encourage direct video- or text-based interactions between participants. Additionally, think about how you can design your assignments and content to draw from the personal experiences of your students; as Keck stated, connecting your material with the personal experiences of your students is a wonderful way to inspire learning, and using your assignments, discussions, and content to pull from students’ lives helps make this connection. This may be as easy as assigning students to complete some course materials and then, for an assignment, charging them conduct some real-world activity and return the results in the form of a paper, project, or video. Additionally, consider using the asynchronous discussion board as a means of inviting commentary, sharing, and analysis from the student population. Crafting discussion topics that enable students to discuss personal experiences and connect those experiences to the material can accomplish the connection Keck discusses; to do this, think about discussion topics such as, “Write about a time you (conducted some activity) and analyze your actions in light of (current course material).” At the most basic level, this will connect students’ past actions with your content and use their experiences to assist new learning.

As we move forward with this blog, we’ll draw upon the insights and experiences of different law enforcement and security professionals and return frequently to the topics of engagement and course design. As you build or revise your distance learning course or consider the benefits of distance learning for your organization, take a look at the free How to Create a Law Enforcement Learning Course offering in our marketplace. That course provides content development and design tips and gives you a variety of tools you can use to help plan and build your course. Finally, take a look at Dr. Britt Watwood’s blog, Learning in a Flat World. He’ll be one of our guest contributors on the blog, and he’s always broadcasting interesting learning, design, and development content. Good luck as you begin your design process, and please post your ideas, questions, and thoughts here.

Distance Learning: The Business Case

In an era of increasingly intense budget pressures, departments and organizations are constantly searching for ways to minimize costs while retaining operational capabilities. In the training world, cost pressures have been a primary motivator for the development of distance learning capabilities because anecdotal information appears to indicate distance learning costs less than traditional classroom experiences. Over the next few weeks, we’ll analyze this contention and place it into the context of a larger discussion on the efficacy of distance learning, the importance of instructional design, and the viability of distance learning as a means of transferring information and skills to law enforcement and security professionals. In this short post, we’ll look at the pure cost case for distance learning. We recognize this is only one small component of a larger set of factors that impact learning and design choices, but the cost question is often of great interest to potential adopters of new learning technologies. As such, we’ll start at cost and then move on to analyze the learning case, the administrative case, and the instructor case for integrating distance learning technology into the law enforcement and security training environments.

According to Rumble (2001), fully-developed distance learning systems have six main institutional costs:

1. Developing e-materials

2. Teaching and assessing students online

3. Accessing the website

4. Administering students online

5. Providing the infrastructure and support within which e-education can operate

6. Planning and managing e-education at the macro-level.

Of these institutional costs, material development and teaching/assessing refer to the hours invested by designers and instructors along with the compensation they receive for that work from their institution. Accessing the website, administering students online, and providing infrastructure and support are technical items that enable development, teaching, and assessment to occur. Finally, planning and managing at the macro-level refers to the strategic planning associated with developing, implementing, and updating educational systems and programs. As you read this post, keep in mind that most of the cost amounts we’ll reference include figures calculated by including each of these institutional costs. For Law Enforcement Learning users who do not have to include infrastructure, support, administration, and website access costs because the company handles all of those things, this means per-course and overall cost calculations should show an even greater difference between total in-person costs and online costs.

 A review of available literature suggests online learning is less expensive than traditional classroom learning. In “Face-to-face versus online coursework: A comparison of costs and learning outcomes,” Herman and Banister (2007) studied the implementation of a particular university distance learning course and then compared it to its in-person precursor in an effort to assess the cost and effectiveness of each option. The researchers determined transitioning to an online version of the in-person course would cut costs from $280.53 to a projected $103.60, a decrease of over 63%. Furthermore, a series of course iterations indicated no significant differences in the learning outcomes of online vs. in-person students, leading the researchers to conclude that “by designing the course for online delivery and developing various interactive multimedia modules, the university was able to offer the course at a considerable savings while maintaining quality.”

These findings were validated by a number of different studies at universities, think tanks, and research institutions. Arvan, Ory, Bullock, Burnaska, and Hanson (1998) found costs decreased 100% of the time when asynchronous distance learning networks replaced face-to-face instruction. Similarly, Meyer (2008) researched studies conducted through the National Center for Academic Transformation and documented 30 institutions that received government grants to remake existing in-person courses into distance learning courses. In the process, those 30 institutions reduced costs an average of 37%, with some projects reducing costs by 15% and others by 77%. Furthermore, the institutions generated a savings of $3.1 million per year in operating costs. Finally, the University of Southern Maine’s John Broida followed the revision of an Introductory Psychology course from an in-person course to an online offering and found the transition cut course costs over 48%.

While this is a tiny sample of the large body of research on online education costs, it suggests that distance learning offerings can save institutions (producers) and students (consumers) by leveraging technology and increasing efficiency. According to the Quality, Interoperability, and Standards in E-Learning team, the institutional cost savings from online courses come from five major areas:

1. A reduction in student/teacher time: Distance learning courses allow students to access content even if the instructor is not ‘present’ at the learning interface; this frees up instructor hours and enables instructors to focus on research and other tasks while students learn independently.

2. Replacing labor hours: Online courses require a different division of labor, freeing instructors to focus on developing content and teaching and leaving technical experts to handle administrative and support functions. This saves instructor time and increases efficiency.

3. Economies of scale: Online content is massively scalable and can attract and support larger audiences than in-person courses. This gives institutions the ability to recoup course creation costs and profit from content.

4. Modularization of content: Online interfaces allow content to be repackaged and reused without significant effort; this cannot happen in the traditional classroom setting, and it enables instructors to offer the exact same course over time and reuse material without devoting time and energy to creation.

5. Reduced classroom costs: Online courses do not require the overhead and infrastructure a traditional classroom course needs – no buildings, classrooms, supplies, and other items that come with large sunk costs and maintenance requirements.

When the costs and benefits of online learning, the measures we’ve cited above document significant cost savings. Keep in mind, though, that cost savings vary dramatically based on development specifics – an immersive, avatar-based learning experience will cost far more to design and develop than a more traditional course consisting of videos, documents, and presentations. To determine if online courses will help your department or company replace labor hours, develop economies of scale, modularize content, and reduce classroom time, take a look at the WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies WCET’s Technology Costing Methodology (TCM) – it’s designed to help analyze the costs of using technology in instruction and helps you compare distance, blended, and traditional classroom options. When you analyze your current operation methods, take into account infrastructure, salary, travel, technology, and all of the other items that make up your budget. You’ll likely find that distance learning methods will decrease your cost, increase flexibility, and enable you to make better use of instructor time and energy. All of these items are positive, but they are meaningless if distance learning does not allow you to achieve the learning objectives you need to. In our next post in this series, we’ll explore that topic in an effort to establish the effectiveness of distance learning. Look for it soon, and leave comments on this piece below.

The Law Enforcement Learning Team

 

Arvan, L., Ory, J. C., Bullock, C. D., Burnaska, K. K., and Hanson, M. The SCALE Efficiency Projects, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks 2 (2), 1998. Available at http://www.aln.org/alnweb/journal/vol2_issue2/arvan2.htm

Herman, T., & Banister, S. (2007). Face-to-face versus online coursework: A comparison of costs and learning outcomes. Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 7(4), 318-326.

Meyer, K. PhD. (2008). If Higher Education is a Right, and Distance Education is the Answer, then Who Will Pay? Sloan Consortium, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, Vol. 12 (1), February. http://www.distanceandaccesstoeducation.org/contents/JALN_v12n1_Meyer.pdf

Coming Soon!

Now that we’ve successfully launched, courses from Nick Nicholson, Lauri Stevens, Scriven King, and more of today’s best law enforcement and security instructors are coming soon! Check the site frequently as we add new courses and, if you are interested in teaching your own course, enroll in our free How to Create a Law Enforcement Learning Course, learn how to build and publish your content, and get started.

Hello, Everyone.

We’ve arrived. The law enforcement and security professions are in states of great change as we open our virtual doors to the world. Technology is driving new crimes and new investigative methods, budget pressures are ensuring new priorities, and generational transitions are inspiring new techniques and introducing new conflicts to the workplace. Over the past decade, many officers have seen immense improvements in the equipment they use, the technology they employ, and the processes they follow to obtain evidence, track criminals, and solve crimes. With relatively few exceptions, though, these improvements have been concentrated in operations while training methods have remained rooted in the traditional classroom paradigm. Outside of the ineffective and often despised computer-based training modules that officers click through as fast as they can, the computer has remained of secondary or tertiary importance in most law enforcement and security training contexts. In a world where more than 60% of private US colleges and universities offer online classes and massive studies by the US Department of Education conclude students in online learning conditions performed ”better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” law enforcement entities remain largely tied to in-person training methods.

We’ve launched this company because we believe the continued absence of a focused distance learning capability leaves law enforcement and security professionals on the outside of a massive revolution in the way people learn, teach, access data, and transfer information. While we recognize that many law enforcement and security training objectives require hands-on application components (an officer needs to put handcuffs on someone to really become competent in the discipline), we are convinced that well-designed, engaging distance learning courses can deliver much of the information transmitted by law enforcement and security trainers. At the micro level, distance learning allows officers flexibility, departments cost-savings and information tracking, and companies new delivery mechanisms. At the macro level, the integration of distance learning into the law enforcement and security training environments fits into the larger, ongoing evolution of education and training from the classroom-based Jesuit approach to something more expansive that combines classrooms, self-paced studies, technology, and community. While we’ll expand on these ideas in future posts, our basic belief is the way people, including members of the law enforcement and security communities, think, learn, and share information is changing due to technology and culture, and trainers must respond or lose the ability to connect with their target audiences.

We also believe that the law enforcement and security communities are full of individuals, training companies, and departments that possess unique ideas, insights, and solutions. Until this point, the disaggregated nature of the law enforcement and security communities and the absence of an effective delivery mechanism resulted in an environment where best practices were not widely shared and most learning occurred on a peer-to-peer, localized basis. In other words, a detective in Charleston, South Carolina may have developed a great interrogation technique, but culture, geography, and technology prohibited him from sharing that technique with many officers outside his geographic area or peer group. Although the community does have professional societies and social networking opportunities, this reality has still resulted in a wide variation of processes, standards, and best practices. Some of this variation is necessary due to local conditions, laws, and capabilities, but some of it is because officers just do not have an effective way of accessing or transferring information on a large-scale level.

With the launch of Law Enforcement Learning, we aim to solve these two problems by making it easy for law enforcement and security professionals to learn, teach, and share. Drawing from the latest distance learning technologies, modern pedagogical techniques, and feedback from the law enforcement and security communities, we’ve built a secure, streamlined way for instructors to deliver anything from college-style multi-week classes to open courses that do not require any instructor involvement. This gives training managers, individuals with unique talents, and companies new tools, new ways to deliver information, and new strategies to employ technology in a manner that is aligned with their students’ learning preferences and information requirements. Conversely, the same technology that enables instructors to deliver secure distance learning courses also allows students to browse courses, select content that they wish to experience, and learn. These items – giving instructors a place to teach and students a place to learn – are helping us create a learning community where officers and professionals from all over the world can transmit best practices, develop new skills, and improve their capabilities.

As we begin this experience, we’ll work hard to attract the best law enforcement and security instructors from around the world, provide them with the best learning technologies, and make it easy for students to access great material. To complement this effort, we’ll use this blog to discuss the latest trends in curriculum design, law enforcement and security training, and other relevant topics. Furthermore, we’ll rely on a combination of university professors, police chiefs, law enforcement instructors, and other stakeholders to lead the blog’s discussions and provide users with theoretical and practical insights. We’re excited to get started, and we can’t wait to positively impact the law enforcement and security communities. If you want more information about us, check out the About page for a brief overview of our company’s mission, goals, and leaders. If you are interested in creating a course or enrolling in an existing offering, head to the Teach or Learn pages for more. Finally, if you have questions or would like chat, send us a message at support@lawenforcementlearning.com and we’ll be in touch soon.

The Law Enforcement Learning Team