Military Review English Edition November-December 2013 | Page 24

helps students become agile with collaborative tools in the current and future operational environments.17 As to weaknesses, students reported feeling unprepared for interagency and multinational settings, they did not find similar growth compared to resident students in developing critical field grade skills, and they had more issues with effective collaboration in planning and executing the Military Decision Making Process.18 The Research and Development Corporation also found that while both virtual teams and collocated teams can achieve the same learning objectives, “virtual groups experience more hurdles to collaboration on complex tasks.”19 One of RAND’s concluding recommendations is to reduce some of the social aspects of the course that make it so challenging for the student. For example, RAND recommends that AOC have fewer synchronous exercises, but make them greater in-depth, while shifting some collaborative activities to higher-level computer based instructions.20 There is one social aspect of AOC by distributed learning that should never be removed—the bonding, through shared experiences, of a staff group made up of diverse branches and geographically dispersed officers. Students often discover they work with or live near each other, and in many cases seek out local classmates to collaborate on assignments. Some teams connect using social networking sites such as Facebook, and at least one group continues to share a weekly newsletter. Many AOC facilitators also transition to career-long mentors of former students as they progress in their careers. Conclusion Many years before Army Learning Concept 2015 was published, the Command and General Staff College and School began pushing its renowned resident program to over 100 resident sites with the help of other Army installations and The Army School System, as well as through an ever-evolving correspondence program. Today, Command and General Staff School maintains the Command and General Staff Officer Course curriculum for all venues across the Army, making it globally accessible through the Blackboard learning management system. The school established and professionally staffed the Department of Distance Education to manage the distance-learning instruction of the core course and AOC through a virtual classroom of excellence. The Department of Distance Education continues to improve its instructional approaches and exploit the latest technologies, such as smart phones and tablets and the dot-com domain, to make professional military education as accessible and up-to-date as possible for all mid-grade officers. No school or program can rest on its accomplishments, especially when professional military education is critical to developing leaders who run the Army and lead our soldiers in unified land operations. The Command and General Staff College and School will continue to learn, adapt, and improve to educate officers serving at the operational edge. Ad bellum pace parati (prepared in peace for war).21 MR NOTES 1. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Pam 525-8-2, The Army Learning Concept for 2015 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office [GPO], 2011), 16. 2. Elvid Hunt and Walter Lorence, History of Fort Leavenworth 1827-1937 (1981), 221. 3. U.S. Army Directive 2012-21, Optimization of Intermediate-Level Education (14 September 2012). 4. TRADOC Pam 525-8-2, 62. 5. U.S. Army Regulation (AR) 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development (Washington, DC: GPO, 2011), 71. 6. U.S. Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) Circular 350-1 (2012), 17. 7. Les Gramkow, Program Manager of Satellite Campuses, U.S. Army Command and General Staff School, 10 May 2013. 8. WHINSEC History at , (14 May 2013). 9. CGSC, Institutional Self Study, September 1975, 109, , (14 May 2013). 10. TRADOC Pam 350-7-12, Distributed Learning—Managing Courseware Production and Implementation, March 2004, 52, (13 May 2004). 11. CGSC, Non-Resident Intermediate Level Education Self-Study, September 2007, iii, found at (14 May 2013). 12. CGSC Circular 350-1 (2012), 3. 13. Raymond A. Kimball and Joseph M. Bylerly, “To Make Army PME Distance Learning Work, Make It Social,” Military Review (May-June 2013): 31. 14. Susan G. Straus, Michael G. Shanely, James C. Crowley, Douglas Yeung, Sarah H. Bana, and Kristin J. Leuschner, Evalutating Army Leader Education (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012), xxiii. 15. TRADOC Pam 525-8-2, 61. 16. Susan G. Straus, Michael G. Shanely, James C. Crowley, Douglas Yeung, Sarah H. Bana, Megan Clifford, and Kristin J. Leuschner, Enhancing Critical Thinking Skills for Army Leaders Using Blended-Learning Methods (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2012), 71. 17. Ibid., 71. 18. Ibid., 72. 19. Ibid., 70. 20. Ibid., 75. 21. Motto on the CGSC Shield, CGSC Circular 350-1, v. November-December 2013 • MILITARY REVIEW