Effective Scenario Training Development

At the Gander Mountain Academy we have the luxury of training in a simulation type environment. What I mean by that is scenario based training. As a student preparing for this type of training it's important that you find the right instructor, the right instructor out there. How do we know who that person is? We need to investigate our instructors because too often in places similar to this, they'll play the scenario and you just go do your thing and you shoot.

The most important part of this is teaching. So, how do we get there? We get there by asking people who have taken the training. You know, it's not so far to go ahead and talk to the actual instructor, you know, get a feel for their abilities 'cause their abilities is what makes this training top-notch, the ability to adjust on the fly. We won't know that until we talk to them.

What is their background? Do they have the ability to teach us? That is truly the most important thing here because you need to get something out of this not just playing the scenario because playing the scenario is the easy part. The hardest part is being able to be taught those simple things that we take for granted. Most of these scenarios that are played out on environments like ours and anybody else out there that does something similar.

The scenario itself has scripted teaching points. You know, anybody can cover those scripted ones, but the real facilitators, the true instructors that really grasp this concept, have the ability to strictly and solely watch the shooter because that shooter, every one of us who is the shooter, will do something in that scenario that triggers a teaching moment and we need to capture that instructor. We need to find that instructor out there that has the ability to exploit those weaknesses or those areas for improvement. The teaching points that are scripted, they're a given, but the key factor really is those unexplained ones that happen.