Adaptive Soldier Leader Training Is Changing Army Education
By Lt. Col. Sonise Lumbaca
U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group
July 15, 2013
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FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md.—Members of the U.S. Army Asymmetric Warfare Group are working to incorporate the Army Learning Concept 2015 into the Army’s forces through Adaptive Soldier Leader Training and Education Mobile Training Teams.
The Army Learning Concept 2015, developed by the Training and Doctrine Command, is an ongoing priority that is currently reworking how the Army trains and educates its Soldiers. ALC 2015 recognizes that forces operating within an era of persistent conflicts require soldiers with both tangible and intangible attributes refined to a higher degree than in the past. The AWG ASLTE MTT assists the Army’s training and education community to develop adaptive, thinking Soldiers and leaders capable of meeting the challenges they will face in the future operational environment.
For over a year now, the AWG ASLTE MTT, under the direction of TRADOC, has been traveling to various Centers of Excellence and Army Schools to assist with efforts to implement ALC 2015 into lessons and courses. A key component is understanding how to design training that develops the nine 21st Century Soldier Competencies. The AWG was charged to spearhead this aspect of the initiative due to its success with its own adaptability program, the Asymmetric Warfare Adaptive Leader Program, which is a 10-day resident course that operates quarterly out of Fort A.P. Hill, Va.
“The Adaptive Soldier Leader Training and Education is about enhancing adaptability in training and education,” said Sgt. 1st Class Keith Pruett, an AWG member and the noncommissioned officer in charge for the MTT. “ASLTE is important because it provides a grounded and behaviorally anchored philosophic approach to meet the real needs of Army learners and prepare them for any potentialities of the operational environment. It is an approach that concentrates learning on principles that span all aspects of warfare and encourages development of genuine knowledge with practice.”
The ASLTE MTT allows the AWG MTT members, a.k.a. AWG Guides, to demonstrate aspects of the continuous adaptive learning model to Centers of Excellence and schools across the Army. In modeling the Adaptive Learning Model 2015, the AWG Guides are able to provide a comprehensive and conceptual approach to help instructors, training developers and quality assurance evaluators transform old practices with new concepts. ALM 2015 is the operational term for the Continuous Adaptive Learning Model. The ALM signifies the shift from concept to deliberate actions that will change Army learning methods and processes from a platform-centric, location-dependent model, to one that is adaptable to learner needs.
“It bridges the techniques and methods traditionally associated with both training and education in order to develop Soldiers and enhance their potential,” Pruett said.
So far, the ASTLE MTT has visited ten CoEs and school houses to include Fort Benning, Fort Huachuca, Fort Sill, Fort Lee, Fort Leonard Wood, Fort Jackson and Fort Rucker. The overall responses from the participants have been enthusiastic and positive.
“For a majority of the participants, they leave with a better idea or way ahead to effect change in their courses by incorporating ALM 2015 with an ASLTE approach. They leave here with [their own] modified lesson plans with examples of ways to move forward,” Pruett said.
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