At the Garda College

Made it to Garda College today. It is located in County Tipperary, in a rural area. It is about 1.5 hours from Dublin. Met with the Director of the Serious Crime Investigations course, Sergeant Liam O'Connell.

I was able to tour the facility, a former British military base, which has been updated. There are approximately 400 student Gardai in training. One group, still in civilian clothes, started yesterday.

There are several specialized courses offered by the Garda College. I will return next week to provide a lecture on Use of Force to trainees. I was able to observe and better understand the approach taken in training, with problem-based learning, based on real-life scenarios, that are scripted. Students in the Senior Investigations Officer (SIO) course learn in plenary sessions. They are then broken into teams to work through issues and consider options to oversee investigations.

Recruits also go through a similar learning approach, to focus on service calls.

In the small group rooms, they are remotely observed by Subject Matter Experts (SME) from the field. They return to the plenary group to discuss the approaches, missed opportunities and learn from each other, along with recommendations from SMEs and staff.

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