Journal - (2021)

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ILEETA Journal Archive

2021

Training knowledge worth preserving

The 2021 Journal reflects a profession still living with the consequences of 2020 while rebuilding face-to-face connection. Four editions examine the return to St. Louis, informal and problem-based learning, force-skill decay, communication, leadership, mental-health response, and the growing effort to collect reliable data on officer suicide.

A note for today’s reader: These articles are preserved in their original historical setting. Law, policy, technology, terminology, medical knowledge, and training practice may have changed. Read the complete article, then compare it with current authority before applying its recommendations.

Volume 11, Edition 1

Conference Edition 2021
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The conference edition welcomes members back to St. Louis and the Emerson Hour. Its articles span ambush survival, range instruction, active shooters, field training, decision-making, organizational values, wellness, personality, bystanders, and connection.

Featured reading

Informal Learning: What Is It and Should We Use It?

Anthony Maness

Maness examines the learning that occurs outside formal courses: a veteran explains a shortcut, a coworker demonstrates a task, or a new officer observes how the unit really operates. Informal learning is powerful because it is immediate, social, and connected to real work. It is also risky when local habit conflicts with policy, law, or sound practice. Trainers and supervisors should not pretend it can be eliminated. They should recognize it, create trustworthy peer models, invite questions, and correct damaging folklore before it becomes the unofficial curriculum of the organization.

Topics: Informal learning; workplace culture; peer influence; unintended curriculum

Citation: Anthony Maness. (2021). Informal Learning: What Is It and Should We Use It?. The ILEETA Journal, 11(1), 33.

Volume 11, Edition 2

Spring 2021
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The spring issue explores communication, quiet-eye performance, listening, problem solving, recruitment, mental-health response, policing in 2020, and the continuing relevance of foundational ideas.

Featured reading

Solving Problems to Learn Problem Solving

Kerry Avery

Avery questions the assumption that simply giving learners a difficult problem will teach them how to solve future problems. Novices may lack the knowledge structures needed to discover an effective method through trial and error, just as many people could not solve a Rubik’s Cube without guidance. Problem-based learning can be valuable, but only when instructors consider prior knowledge, cognitive load, scaffolding, feedback, and the actual objective. Learners need both useful information and opportunities to apply it. Productive struggle is designed; confusion by itself is not an instructional strategy.

Topics: Problem-based learning; cognitive load; scaffolding; instructional design

Citation: Kerry Avery. (2021). Solving Problems to Learn Problem Solving. The ILEETA Journal, 11(2), 19-20.

Volume 11, Edition 3

Fall 2021
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The fall edition focuses on mission, leadership, winning, force-skill decay, quiet-eye research, training sufficiency, recruitment, organizational risk, and instructor responsibility.

Featured reading

Use of Force: A Depreciable Skill—An Academic, Tactical and Strategic Approach

Andy Casavant

Casavant begins with a simple premise: physical and decision skills deteriorate without consistent practice. Annual or infrequent blocks cannot preserve fluent weapon handling, force transitions, judgment, and tactical movement by themselves. The article calls for an academic, tactical, and strategic approach that connects knowledge, repeated physical practice, scenario application, supervision, and organizational planning. Force competence is not a qualification permanently earned; it is a capability that must be maintained. Trainers and leaders therefore share responsibility for scheduling meaningful repetition and recognizing decay before a critical event exposes it.

Topics: Skill decay; use-of-force training; recurring practice; organizational strategy

Citation: Andy Casavant. (2021). Use of Force: A Depreciable Skill—An Academic, Tactical and Strategic Approach. The ILEETA Journal, 11(3), 14-17.

Volume 11, Edition 4

Winter 2021
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The winter issue closes with shooting-investigation survival, pursuit, instructor leadership, interviewing, suicide-data collection, personality, liability, and reflections on policing through COVID.

Featured reading

Are Education and Training Synonyms?

Kerry Avery

Avery separates education—understanding concepts, principles, and context—from training—developing the ability to perform. Law-enforcement professionals need both. An officer may understand the legal basis for an action yet be unable to execute the skill under pressure, or may perform a technique without understanding when its use is appropriate. The distinction helps instructors select methods and assessments: discussion and reading may build understanding, while coached practice and realistic application build performance. Clear language matters because it reveals what a course promises and whether learners are being prepared to know, to do, or both.

Topics: Education; training; knowledge; performance

Citation: Kerry Avery. (2021). Are Education and Training Synonyms?. The ILEETA Journal, 11(4), 14-15.

Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection (LESDC)

Karen Solomon

Solomon describes the launch of the FBI’s Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection and the advocacy that preceded it. Blue H.E.L.P. had gathered year-over-year suicide information and supported survivors while national data remained fragmented. Federal collection offered the possibility of more consistent information about current and former personnel, circumstances, and trends. For trainers and leaders, better data can sharpen prevention, identify gaps, and replace unsupported assumptions. The article also reminds readers that data collection is not the endpoint: reporting participation, survivor support, benefits, stigma reduction, and informed intervention remain essential.

Topics: Officer suicide; LESDC; Blue H.E.L.P.; data collection

Citation: Karen Solomon. (2021). Law Enforcement Suicide Data Collection (LESDC). The ILEETA Journal, 11(4), 19-20.

The strongest training community remembers where its ideas came from, tests them against new evidence, and passes the lessons forward.