Military Review English Edition November-December 2015 | Page 120

the operational environments
where they deploy. With
feedback from monitoring,
the leadership can then make
changes to the curriculum,
learning environment, and instructional approach to ensure
mission accomplishment.
As mentioned earlier, the
program had been receiving generally positive feedback from students about
the critical thinking classes
but generally disappointing
feedback from the supported
commanders about the team
members’ performance on the
job. The training and education directorate’s leadership
came to realize that although
monitoring students’ reactions
to their classes was important,
they needed to have a more
robust assessment process
that would help guide effective
change. Therefore, the training
staff created an assessment
(Photo by Staff Sgt. Whitney Hughes, Task Force Wolverine PAO)
process based on Donald L.
Malal Loynab, a human terrain analyst with Combined Joint Task Force 101, teaches an Afghan
child English during a literacy program 28 October 2010 at the Egyptian Field Hospital on
Kirkpatrick’s model for evalBagram Airfield, Afghanistan. The program, which Loynab helped start, was facilitated by
uating training programs. In
members of the CJTF-101 Human Terrain Analysis Team to educate children who visited the
hospital for Women and Children’s Day twice a week.
addition to the four levels of
assessment included in the
and likely for all Army leaders, these skills are essential.
Kirkpatrick model, they added a “level 0.”15
The training designers therefore ensured that exercises
Training assessment level 0: preexisting knowlincluded some aspect of execution. Finally, to add to the
edge and skills. The program needed to identify
challenge, they added an ethical dilemma to the critical
incoming students’ individual and collective strengths
thinking task by introducing disconfirming information
and weaknesses with regard to critical thinking. This
after the commander had been briefed and had fully
information would help instructors avoid wasting
endorsed the students’ initial conclusions.
time on topics for which students were not ready or
were already proficient. Every class needed to achieve
A Comprehensive Assessment
maximum effectiveness and seek ways to accelerate
Program to Facilitate
learning in every way possible because the training
Organizational Agility
was limited to ten weeks.
The fifth and final key to teaching critical thinking
The program designers adopted a critical thinkskills is to use a comprehensive assessment program
ing pretest administered as part of student orienthat enables the leadership to continuously monitor
tation. They used a modified version of the HCTA
the students in class, the graduates in the field, and
that focused on the three high-priority critical
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November-December 2015  MILITARY REVIEW