Portage County State Farm agent Shannan Jursa sponsored a ThinkFast Interactive program held on the JAG campus. The specific program focused on traffic safety.
Shannan had a lot to say about the assembly being more fun than anticipated. “Since auto accidents are one of the largest causes of death for teenagers, State Farm is doing everything possible to reduce teenage driver deaths and injuries. The administration was tentative when I first arrived as they said they didn’t know what to expect. However, ten minutes in and it was all smiles and more as more teachers, admin, and local PD, filled the auditorium to watch.” When asked why she felt this event was important, “These kids are my future drivers. It’s important to teach them the valuable, but harsh, realities of distracted driving. The challenge was finding a way to reach a group of teenagers on their level. I think ThinkFast Interactive nailed it.”
ThinkFast Interactive is an experiential team building and awareness program with informative and engaging awareness trivia. From start to finish, the message of prevention, responsibility, and awareness are non-intrusively reinforced. An experienced team of hosts guide participants through the program so that everyone engages with the information. ThinkFast uses active and experiential learning that provides participants with memory hooks to promote retention and retrieval. ThinkFast’s exclusive content concept moves between memory hook questions that relate to popular culture and awareness content questions to maintain participant attention. The program provides a “clue” or stimulus that triggers an emotion, then partners these emotions with factual information. It uses multiple forms of visual games to involve limbic functioning as well as visual memory. While students may not remember every single fact presented, the overall effect is that a positive emotional feeling is associated with knowing critical safety information, and attitudes are shifted towards valuing personal safety and promoting the safety of others.
