Military Review English Edition November-December 2014 | Page 46

and former students—who continue to engage the
college via social media after graduation.
Initiatives to establish a collaborative virtual environment for students, instructors, and Army leadership
have drawn positive attention from the Combined
Arms Center, the Army Capabilities Integration
Center, and the chief of staff of the Army. These efforts
have prompted further in-house reflection on digital
and communication strategies for the long term. The
faculty and staff are determined to reach students
where increasing numbers of them spend much of
their time—online—and extend warrant officers’
learning experiences beyond the brick-and-mortar
environment.
Many students who participate in the new learning model laud capstone exercises in Warrant Officer
Intermediate Level Education and Warrant Officer
Senior Service Education for pushing them to think
critically, cooperate with unified action partners, and
fully consider cultural ramifications of key command
decisions. Many students report they develop a better
appreciation of commanders’ requirements of staffs.
In post-graduation surveys (internal, unpublished),
students reflect how much better equipped they are
to operate alongside staff officers who are graduates of
other intermediate-level education programs.

Within the classroom, USAWOCC has reduced or
eliminated instructor-led slide presentations in favor of
student-led briefs, student-executed practical exercises, and student-driven operational scenarios. Faculty
have transitioned from “sage on the stage” to “guide
on the side,” challenging students with Socratic-style
questioning techniques and gently steering student-initiated conversation and debate along paths that reach
the desired learning outcomes, albeit through student
initiative and conclusion.
Warrant officers have much to contribute to the
learning of their fellow students. For example, those
who possess rare or sought-after special skills have
found themselves deployed somewhat disproportionately often compared to other soldiers over the last dozen years. Such have an inordinate wealth of operational
experiences to share with their fellow students.
ALC 2015 laments, “The Army often assigns instructors arbitrarily, rather than through a selection process
that accounts for subject-matter expertise or aptitude,
to facilitate adult learning. Instructor positions are not
perceived to be career-enhancing assignments.”14 To
meet that challenge, USAWOCC has been aggressively recruiting instructors with the best possible mix of
operational and educational backgrounds. Moreover, in
2014, the one-hundred-percent selection rate of faculty

Warrant officer candidates complete a road march 28 July 2011 during Warrant Officer Candidate School at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center, Ind.
(Photo by Jill Swank, Camp Atterbury PAO)

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November-December 2014  MILITARY REVIEW