Military Review English Edition November-December 2013 | Page 29
E M B R AC I N G M I S S I O N CO M M A N D
Operational Domain
Institutional Domain
Training
Experience
Education
Education
Experience
Training
Leader
Development
Self-Development Domain
Experience
Education
Training
Figure 2
The Army Leader Development Model
Within the institutional domain, CGSOC may
provide a good example of this idea in practice,
since one of its major educational principles is the
use of the Socratic and Adult Learning Methods.17
These educational methods are largely experiential,
in that students are intended to develop or create
knowledge based on concrete experience, reflection,
critical analysis, and synthesis. (Synthesis, in an educational context, is a learning goal within the cognitive domain.)18 Varying types of experiential learning
models have been described over the years, the Kolb
method being quite influential both in and outside
of the military. Within the CGSOC, the steps of this
continuous process are—concrete experience, publish
and process, generalize new information, develop
ideas, apply ideas, and provide feedback (see Figure
3).19 Whatever the steps and how they are depicted,
the fundamental characteristic of adult learning is that
learning is treated as a holistic, continuous, process of
MILITARY REVIEW
• November-December 2013
adaptation to the world, grounded in experience. The
CGSOC’s methodology corresponds to this theory,
by transforming experience into created knowledge.20
Synthesis, then, in a leader development sense, is a
goal and product of experiential learning; the student
transforms experience into knowledge. Similarly,
the leaders we wish to develop must gain concrete
experience, and in a goal-oriented fashion, reflect
on it, analyze it, and synthesize the knowledge the
Army needs to meet tomorrow’s challenges. This
process should not be limited to a classroom setting.
Rather, the continuous cycle of experience, reflection, conceptualization, and experimentation must
take place within the three development domains.
In every case we find one obvious, common thread
through each domain—the student, the learner, or the
developing leader.
One way to think of this is to envision experiential
learning taking place in each domain (see Figure 4).
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