Military Review English Edition November December 2016 | Page 107
TRANSFORMING TRAINING
leaders to operate in a complex world. Commanders
must become more than training managers; they must
become training designers. They must understand and
apply evidence-based practices to develop their formations. Through this approach, the Army will no longer
rely just on the institutional Army (also known as the
generating force) for education, as the training conducted
in the operating force will allow for greater development of knowledge and understanding in all its soldiers
and leaders. Thinking of unit training as more than just
rehearsals will improve soldier and leader education
throughout their careers.
Notes
1. U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC)
Pamphlet (TP) 525-3-1, The U.S. Army Operating Concept, Win in a
Complex World, 2020-2040 (Fort Eustis, VA: TRADOC, 2014).
2. Robert B. Brown, “The Army University: Educating Leaders
to Win in a Complex World,” Military Review 95, no. 4 ( July-August
2015), 22.
3. Ibid., 19.
4. Ibid., 19–22.
5. This is certainly not a doctrinal statement, but commanders’
expectations that soldiers will arrive from professional military
education (PME) knowing all they need to know have been evident
over the past few years. An example is recent interactions between
the Infantry School and operating force leadership from Stryker
brigade combat teams. In several formal meetings and briefings, the
operating force leadership has asked the school to provide more
and better opportunities for individuals to learn the Stryker system
before arriving to their unit. While this may be possible, it would
require additional PME expansion, which may not be feasible.
6. Again, this perspective regarding soldiers viewing training
merely as rehearsing is not doctrinal, but is based on personal
experience during interactions between the institutional force (the
Maneuver Center of Excellence) and leaders from the operational
force. There was an expectation amongst operational leaders that
the Maneuver Center of Excellence would create graduates that
had all the skills necessary to perform in follow-on operational-force
assignments with little to no additional development necessary.
Those leaders saw unit training as “exercising” or “practicing” skills
that individuals gained through PME.
7. While the tr aining domains are a doctrinal construct, the U.S.
Army Human Resources Command also has several publications
covering this topic, specifically in how it relates to career progression.
8. These time figures for PME are based on a chart developed by
Armor Branch at Human Resources Command to depict career timelines. The information was presented to Maneuver Captain’s Career
Course students in fall of 2015.
9. There are several training-related publications, but I would
specifically like to point the reader to Army Doctrine Publication
(ADP) 7-0, Training Units and Developing Leaders (Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office [GPO], 2012) and its related series
of manuals.
10. “8 Step Training Model,” Fort Benning graphic, accessed 6
September 2016, http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/ocoa/content/References%20and%20Guides/8%20Step%20Training%20
Model.pdf.
11. U.S. Army Combined Arms Center (CAC), “Enhancing
Realistic Training White Paper: Delivering Training Capabilities for
MILITARY REVIEW November-December 2016
Operations in a Complex World” (white paper, U.S. Army CAC, Fort
Leavenworth, KS, 26 January 2016), accessed 21 September 2016,
http://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/documents/cact/ERT%20
White%20Paper%20-%20Signed%20(26%20JAN%202016).pdf.
12. It is difficult to cite a lack of something. Though “crawl, walk,
run” is discussed throughout training doctrine, there is little else to
shape training design in many of the doctrinal publications available
for operating force commanders.
13. Richard E. Mayer, Applying the Science of Learning (Boston:
Pearson Education, Inc., 2011), 18.
14. Richard E. Mayer, “Learning,” in Encyclopedia of Educational
Research (New York: The Free Press, 1982), 1040–58.
15. Army Regulation 350-1, Army Training and Leader Development (Washington, DC: U.S. GPO, 2014), 239.
16. Ibid., 229.
17. Patricia L. Smith and Tillman J. Ragan, Instructional Design
(Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 5.
18. Ibid., 26.
19. Ibid., 19.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. TP 525-8-2, The U.S. Army Learning Concept for 2015 (Fort
Eustis, VA: TRADOC, 20 January 2011).
23. Smith and Ragan, Instructional Design, 25.
24. Wallace Hannum, “B. F. Skinner’s Theory,” Learning Theory
Fundamentals website, accessed 6 September 2016, http://www.
theoryfundamentals.com/skinner.htm.
25. E-mail from Lt. Gen. Stephen Townsend to the XVIII Airborne
Corps leadership and the Infantry School at Fort Benning, Georgia, 1
March 2016.
26. Paul Cobb, “Constructivism and Learning,” in International
Encyclopedia of Educational Technology, 2nd ed., eds. Tjeerd Plomp
and Donald P. Ely (Tarrytown, NY: Elsevier Science, 1996), 56–59.
27. Smith and Ragan, Instructional Design, 26.
28. Ibid., 25.
29. T. J. Schuell, “Cognitive Conceptions of Learning,” Review of
Educational Research 56 (1986): 415.
30. Smith and Ragan, Instructional Design, 11.
31. Ibid., 26.
32. Ibid., 79.
33. Ibid., 80–81.
34. Ellen D. Gagné, Carol Walker Yekovich, and Frank R. Yekovich,
The Cognitive Psychology of School Learning (Boston: Little & Brown,
1985).
35. Smith and Ragan, Instructional Design, 5.
36. Ibid., 9.
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