(radio static) - Roger flight 807 approaching runway seven bravo - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. - So in our business, national security, where our job is to fly fight win, we better be masters at this game of innovation. - Air Force base and military training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality. - This is the Developing Mach-21 Airmen podcast. Hey everybody, welcome into Developing Mach-21 Airmen. Thanks for the subscribes, stream, or download, however you might be listening in. If you get a chance to throw some stars or even take some time out and leave us a review, we certainly would appreciate that. We certainly also appreciate you taking time today to tune in with us. My name is Dan Hawkins from the Air Education and Training Command Public Affairs Office and your host for this professional development podcast, dedicated to bringing total force, big A Airmen, insight, tips, tricks and lessons learned from the recruiting, training, and education field. Doctor Covas-Smith from the headquarters AETC Future Environments division jumps on the podcast today, which by the way is episode number 11 already, hard to believe. But there's tons of goodness here on this episode as we focus on the trends and learning today that will help us as a command shape the future learning environment in the year 2030. New to the First Command, Doctor Covas-Smith has spent a good deal of time in her career at the Air Force Research Laboratory, as well as at the Air Force Personnel Center looking at force development and the education and training environment from a research perspective. So she is passionate and has a deep background in learning, so looking forward to what she has to talk about in terms of trends moving forward in the education and training world. With training such a big part of maintaining readiness, which is of course a top priority for our senior Air Force leaders, and also the focus of our AETC strategic plan on reimagining the training arena across the board. A couple of the big reasons why these learning trend considerations is so important is that it, the implications and performance measurement of those trends will contribute to our return on investment and the long term planning. In essence, if we're not leaning forward, we're going to get left behind in terms of the learning space that is out there for us to explore. Leading things off, Doctor Covas-Smith talks about where we need to head in terms of learning in the future and why we have to consider the trends now in order to shape learning in 2030 with a focus on baseline performance and the methods used in addition to some of the consequences of not considering those trends. She then moves into the trends going in-depth into several areas of learning, including the advantages and implications of each of the trends, as well as application of the trends that are happening now across the First Command. Some of those that Doctor Covas-Smith digs into include the proliferation of artificial intelligence, the use of virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, as well as the increase in open source environment learning, which talks to Air Force content on hubs like YouTube, Code Project, Bright Hub, as well as social media in how that open that open source environment fits into the AETC strategic plan in terms of multi-device implementation. She also dives into collaborative learning trends, talking directly to what classrooms will look like, team cognition, that's in terms of training as we would fight or considering team as the unit and as well as performance optimized teams. So a lot of good stuff here and you'll want to stick around to the end. Kind of saved the best for last, at least in my opinion. We talk about the science of game-based learning, including the critical components and advantages of that, as well as the implication of using games in the learning environment. So let's start thinking learning in 2030. Episode 11 of Developing Mach-21 Airmen starts right now. - So Doctor Covas-Smith, thanks for coming in today and talking with us here on the podcast. Tell us a little bit about yourself. - Well thanks for having me. I've been with the Air Force since 2002. Worked in an Air Force research laboratory, started out in Mesa, Arizona doing training research. Worked everything to fast jet to heavy to RPA and JTECH. Lotta different operational mission areas. My area of expertise is decision making and and competency based training. I went to school at Arizona State University for three degrees. My undergrad and my masters are in human factors and my doctorate is in psychology with an emphasis on perception, action, and cognition. So really focusing on human performance elements. - So here at AETC you work in the Futures Environment Division in A9Z. It's pretty interesting what you guys are doing there. So can you kinda tell the audience maybe what your guys' main mission in life is? - So we are part of the Intelligence, Analysis, and Innovation Directorate, which really the goal of our overarching directorate is to really fuel decision advantage and enforce development and in learning environments. So really pushing force development development through an intel level analysis. Really understanding the environment and then really pushing innovation based on that good, solid, firm environmental understanding. And A9Z, really our goal is to kind of develop the learning environment, so to help it to grow. One through taking this environmental assessment piece and working into strategic aligned trends for force development. Making sure that we are ensuring that there's a joint perspective and working with academia and industry to kind of bring the whole picture together. - And there's really a couple different sides to A9. So you have the A9A team who is working in innovation, but they're kind of dealing more on the technology and the today side of the ideas, whereas you guys and focused a little bit more on that human development, force development type side. - Really a lot of our emphasis is on the learning science and the learning environments and really pushing to 2030 and beyond in a lot of cases. We want to pull in all of the good learning and cognitive science research that's being done into the Air Force and really determine the best way to implement it along side of our competency based learning development and really try to leapfrog our training into the future. Really, I mean, one of the goals is, as far as training goes, we were Air Force was looked at as the training experts for a very long time and really our goal is to get the Air Force back to being considered the training experts in the world. - When you look at learning and you look at the future of learning. In fact, AETC just held a learning consortium a few weeks ago, and you gave a presentation there called Learning 2030: Are You Plugged In. Where is learning headed for us and why is it so important that AETC looks to 2030 already in terms of where we're headed? - Well, so change takes time and incorporating new technologies, new developments, and completely fundamentally changing the way that we're doing training is gonna take some time. It's going to take time both from a social, socialization and acceptance standpoint, as well as an integration standpoint. So that's kind of why we're really pushing one to two decades out is really trying to think about okay so, how do we anticipate what the technology's going to look like and how do we develop our training to meet the capabilities enabled by that technology? - So the big focus of your presentation at the learning consortium was that trends and what learning is shaping up over the next 10 years or so. But before we get into some of those trends, why, and you touched on it a minute ago, but why is it so important that we consider all of these trends and how do we plug in and figure out what's the right method moving forward? How do we do that and why is it so important to consider it right now? - Well the first thing that we really need to do before jumping into trends is really understand our current state. We need to develop performance measurements, develop assessments of our airmen so we understand where we stand now. Before jumping a decade or more down the road, really understanding both the operational and the learning environment, how are we utilizing technology or not and then how do we change that? What is the best way to push us into the future? And really develop a strategy. So kind of get out there a little bit on how we're gonna do that and then plan long-term, which is a little bit more conservative term, how we're going to implement that strategy. - And I think what sometimes gets lost in the shuffle, is you're not operating in a vacuum. There's a lot of collaboration that has to happen to make those kinds of decisions across the Air Force. - Absolutely and a lot of our work is focused on strategic engagement and fusion. When I say fusion, I'm really talking about taking our engagements and taking them to the next level. You're not just talking to people, you're actually working with them and you're not just working with them, you're working with them on a strategic level and you're actually implementing the results of the collaboration back into your learning environment. So really taking that and closing the loop so it's not just a discussion, but it's really a discussion with a purpose and then the purpose and the results are actually utilized. This is on many different levels. We're working with academia. We're working with industry. We have a joint future learning working group. We're actually bringing in the Navy, the other Air Force entities, Marine Corps, Army, and some of their future command and create op folks and ADL to kind of make sure that we are all on the same page. There really, this is a really unique group in that from OSD perspective, they do have some groups that are focused, but it's more on SNT. So really what our core focus of our future learning working group is really to unite practitioners and scientists and engineers. So we're actually closing the loop between people who are using the developments and employing them in the schoolhouse to the SNEs that are actually doing to development. So kind of closing that loop and using that communication to really accelerate where we're going. - And really all of these actions tie back to Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein wanting a more lethal and ready force. - Absolutely. - And in line with and in line with General Kwast's strategic plan, using immersive technology, using big data to help drive decisions, and basically reimagining training and all of these things just play right into the Air Force's big picture of ultimately providing airmen who are ready to go out into that joint world in our dynamic security environment and that's really what's so exciting about what you get to do for a living. - Well and we're also, so along those lines of developing airmen, we're also thinking about okay, so how to we develop a cadre of folks who have the future thinking mindset? So I came from the lab so it was not a invalid concept to me to think about the future state because we plan 20 to 30 years in advance on most of our programs. As far as research and development goes. But I want to bring that to AETC, really get people thinking and developing a knowledge base to think in the future. Really looking at okay so how we train people to be systems thinkers, get them thinking critically and evaluating products, bringing in the social intelligence component and really thinking about how do you build collaborations and how do you actually use the results of that collaboration to push where you're going down the road. And then, like I talked about that joint planning, really making sure that everything we're doing has a joint flavor and connect back to our joint operating environment as well as understand the human in the loop. I mean that's my background so I'm going to footstomp performance assessment. I'm going to footstomp the human factor. Really we need to think about this war fighter, this airmen that we're putting in this training system and how all of the manipulations of the training system or the learning developments are going to affect him. So that's our goal is to affect him, but we want to make sure we're doing it in an effective and efficient way to create a ready war fighter. And also bringing in the considerations, looking at return on investment, which is really important to consider when you're looking at technological innovation and trend development is really, so what is this cool, neat toy going to bring to us in the long run? Kind of strat planning and forecasting where you're gonna go. Also, I think that, like I said, I bring the SNT understanding from being at the lab. That's not necessarily a skill set or an ability that most people have. So how do we motivate people to have the curiosity to go out and discover the science and technology that can help them? And then also kind of understanding your mission space and really where are the gaps? So do the gap analysis and figure out here's the areas that I might be able to inject the technology or I might be able to inject a new learning principle in order to get us to the next step. - And really, it was interesting because Pilot Training Next is doing so many cool things in terms of the technology and learning and just finding different ways to do training. Last week they had a technology expo here and I talked to Colonel Samantha Weeks. She's the 14th Flying Training Wing Commander at Columbus Air Force Base and she told me that right now it's just an exciting time to be an airmen because really the Air Force has said, hey free reign, let's go out there and try to find new ways to do business and is there better time to be an airmen in terms of learning right now? - I don't think as far as learning, I think we are in a great space. People are open to change and are willing to move along a new road and I think that's actually going to be a cultural shift for us. It takes a little bit of an open mind, but the work they're doing at PTN is really amazing. It's taking some Air Force developed technologies from AFRL and some Air Forced developed theories about learning and really implementing them to really cut that training time down, which really our long-term fiscal picture, we really have to think about cost. - And not doing it in a vacuum. Really basing it on competency. - Absolutely. - Breaking those long held industrial age paradigms that General Kwast talks about. Time is the constant. And training in the context of a mission. So it's really exciting, but talking about exciting, let's transition over to the trends because there is so much cool stuff. I mean, we don't have enough time on the podcast to really go full in-depth on all of these, but let's start with artificial intelligence and it is just exploding and our want for that is just continuing to grow because as each new update to what we can do with artificial intelligence comes out, we see the possibilities and we want even more. So talk a little bit about artificial intelligence. - So artificial intelligence has been a part of our culture, but really it's becoming integrated and it's becoming integrated to the point that we don't even know that it's there, which is the key is really to have that seamless integration and usability. Air Force is really picking up and running with artificial intelligence, especially with regards to some of the automated tutors that are being used. PTN is a great example of the use of automated tutors, so while these pilots are flying in a virtual environment, the automated tutor's coaching them, giving them very specific feedback to help them to better their performance in much more rapid fashion. Really, when we talk about, when I talk about artificial intelligence I think what's really going to be the footstomper, is really augmented intelligence, which is the notion of combining the AI, which is really smart and great, with our amazing human cognitive abilities. Humans are really great decision makers. We're really great at reaction. We have the ability to take large amounts of information and pull out nuggets in a very short period of time. Those are some of the developments that AI hasn't quite gotten to yet. So really, the interest is really how do we look at augmented intelligence where augmenting our own intelligence with decision support or feedback tools really to guide learning and to capitalize on our human capabilities? - Because truly at the end of the day we still need that human touch from the instructor perspective. You have all this data and the artificial intelligence can see data and look at it in a more black and white way, but you kind of still need that human instructor to be able to take that human side of learning. - To take the human side of learning and to really pull everything back together. Because maybe you're AI is only focused on one part of your task, but your instructor's there to teach you how to integrate those elements together into a unified performance. - And so, from an instructor perspective, how do you see AI changing their lives from an instructor perspective moving forward? - From an instructor perspective, and this is actually relevant to faculty development, it's going to really change the role of the instructor. So they're going to become a mediator or a facilitator where they're kind of guiding performance, but they're not necessarily providing the direct feedback in real time that they have because that AI is going to take that over. They may inject feedback in where maybe the AI's not quite up to speed, but really they're going to be monitoring performance. It gives them more of a chance to really look at what are the performance assessments that I can be doing while this person is performing the task? The performance assessment piece is also going to be built-in and measured automatically, so maybe they're parsing through that data in real time. - And there's still some challenges for the artificial intelligence. You kind of touched on that it's not quite there, but developing it and then making sure that that AI is measuring that content that we need it to measure and making it even scalable. So there's still some challenges. - Absolutely. The one thing I mean is that AI really good at right now is really well-defined problem spaces. Where it can ingest the large amount of information, make some conclusions, and then use that to perform a task. If it's an ill-defined problem space or has any uncertainty to it, that's definitely something that a human needs to stay in the loop on. - We talked a little bit about General Kwast's strategic plan and his vision and where is long-held industrial age paradigms. One of the big advantages for AI is it helps students kind of control the learning and they can learn at their own pace. - Absolutely and I think students really prefer. It's more engaging to them. The fact that it adapts automatically allows them to move faster if they want to or if they're able to or to slow it down in areas that they might need a little bit more assistance. This engagement is definitely increased because the AI can match student preferences via feedback given into the model from the students. - So when you look at how AI will be able to integrate inside of operations during your presentation, you gave some excellent examples of how not just the Air Force for example in tile training exercises uses it, but you talked about even other sister services like the Army doing some AI things in the field, as well as the FAA. - So the Army is using AI, actually. In their field training, they actually have wearable sensors that people are equipped with before they go out in the field and then the AI is actually working to detect their physiological states and their cognitive state so they know if the individual is getting stressed out or if they're overheated or they have some variability to their heart rate and they can actually change the training to react to the physiological state of the war fighter in a natural environment, which is pretty amazing. - We can probably talk about AI all day, but we're gonna transition here to more into the technological side of the augmented reality, virtual reality, and even mixed reality. In fact, a few weeks ago I had the chance to sit down with some folks from Air University, from Squadron Officer school and some of the things they're doing with mixed reality, frankly was just off the chain. It was incredible what they're doing. So can you talk a little bit about what you see the trends are moving forward for learning 2030? - Absolutely. So ARVR, so augmented, mixed and virtual reality are up and run with, which is amazing. I was around and in research the first time the first time that they really started kind of bringing in the cost factor was so high that nobody could actually use the technologies beyond like an initial system. Now we've got this great technology industry running with the ball and we're going to get updates and maintenance hopefully for years to come. So there are some great advantages to be used with these technologies in our training systems. I think the advantages are probably pretty well-known. Right now the cost is a lot lower than a lot of live training environments. The immersions or the ability to create a high fidelity training environment that is really engaging to the trainee is one of the definite benefits. You can also create tasks and scenarios in these environments that you can't create any other way. So you if you imagine a live training environment, even red flag or an infantry training, as I used the Army example before, you can do a lot, but it takes a lot of aircraft. It takes a lot of resources. You can't create wicked scenarios for people to learn in. Through immersive environments, augmented, virtual, mixed reality, we can create those wicked scenarios. Those one-off experiential development opportunities, and then also along with it comes the increasing fee, and I already think I talked about the engagement a little bit, so it's really changing the way that people are learning the information because they're so immersed. It's really creating a more robust cognitive representation of the learning. - I think it's really interesting that you bring up the safety perspective because obviously safety first, no matter what we're doing. General Doherty, 19th Air Force Commander, was recently out at Little Rock Air Force Base and some of the safety implications of how they're doing training by using the technology to increase their ability to do repetitions in the training environment, but doing it in a completely 100 percent safe way is a huge selling point, obviously, for what we want to do. And even Shepard, they have the fear of heights training simulator that they've developed where they can test people's ability to operate in that environment standing on the ground. - Well the other advantage is, is it really because of the repetition factors an ability you can actually take advantage of watching these developments and learning theory that look at developing knowledge-based repetitions and the diversity of training (overlapping voices). Because we can be systems thinkers. - At Pilot Training Next because they're able to fly all these types of sorties before they actually ever go up in an airplane. It's a lot easier because they've seen it fifteen times, where before maybe they would've never even seen it before they actually flew in plane. - Well and I think, so AR also bringing some really interesting capabilities. So we actually have the ability through augmented reality to provide a support tool using AI and to provide a scaffold to these individuals wearing a goggle, that are actually out in an actual environment instead of being stuck in sim lab or constrained to the desk. They can actually go out and work on their aircraft or work on whatever system it is that they're doing and still have the decision support like they would in training. So we imagine those things to be cost savers. The considerations looking at return on investment, which is really important to consider when you're looking at technological innovation and trend development. With that decision support they can be as productive if not more so than an individual who completed their full training in a normal training environment. There is some research pointing at that capability actually working and allowing them the ability to learn and grow on the job and at a higher rate than they would in a typical training environment. If you can imagine that is a really (voices overlapping) understanding missions training and overhead cost. - Of course we always have to be fiscally conscious. That's just the reality of every day for us in the Air Force. Transitioning out, we have so much to talk about. It's really incredible, so many cool things. One of General Kwast's big things when he took command a year and a half ago was creating the ability for airmen to access learning anywhere, anytime using any device. One of the ways, as we look forward to learning in 2030, is how do we (voices overlapping). - The open source environment's already there. We had two airmen go through, look for a specific topic area over 30 minutes and they found probably about 25 different sources that are out there on the web actually had Air Force content and this is everything from Git Hub to YouTube to Code Project, some of the Microsoft settings as well as all of our social media. The content is out there. What the Air Force is working toward now is pulling it all into theories about really implementing them to really cut that training time down and give us the ability to find what we're looking for to still allow people to create their own content, but it will also be curated and organized in a way that's easy to search and access. - And it's really exciting, but you talked about creating more content (voices overlapping) - That allows not only the learnees, but also the people they're (voices overlapping). Maybe there's a new tech development that they want to get new information out to the trainees. They can do that in a quick and easy way and have it readily accessible. - I think another cool thing that you do see often from outside forces is crowd-sourced content. That's getting more popular, getting spread around more because maybe there's value in it. - Absolute, absolutely. People who are able to establish themselves as experts, their information is often (voice overlapping). - Lots going on in that arena and it transitions us nicely to collaborative learning trends both in terms of inside the classroom as well as cognition and training as we would fight, so to speak, and then performance from a team perspective. So let's start in the classroom. Kind of a shift in thinking there big time. - Absolutely. So the AI that we're looking at now is great and really flipping the classroom upside down. The students are really able to learn. When students teach each other, it gives them an ability to deeply pass the information because they have to internalize it and then they have to process it at a level where they can explain it in a very short period of time and then teaching it to someone else, which doubles the exposure of the information that they're getting. And then also when they receive information intelligence from other students, it's also strengthening their knowledge of presentations. In the classroom, you're really changing your level of focus. Yes, you're looking at an individual, but the team and all of the other people on it are not going to be successful unless everybody works together. All of our working environments are also built that way, as well. Not only changing the way that we're providing instruction doesn't actually help the students. It also has the the additional ability to prepare them to go out into the force because they're learning more of those team collaboration coordination abilities along side their knowledge development. - And that really transitions from instructors and their changing role of how they're going to end up facilitating, maybe being the primary instructor of scenarios. But there's already some applications being put in place from the classroom perspective in AETC, at Keesler, and at Air University. - And they really are showing some great success. Like you mentioned, it really does change that instructor role. They have to change the way that they develop their curriculum and their syllabi to be able to have students teach each other and really use the technology that they have (voices overlapping) and maybe get some different technology, like some smart whiteboard on the wall as facilitation (voices overlapping) for the instructor. The instructor is also monitoring learning and so if the learning is not occurring on a specific topic, he can stop the class from doing the team activity and jump in and lecture everybody to get them all back where they need to be. So more of a path director facilitator role than a lecturer. To really aid on the side (voices overlapping) really changes that fundamental work and instruction. - Looking at the team contact and cognition and training as we would fight, this future of learning really looks at performing performance measurement from a group. - Individual performance measurement is very, very important. We do function as teams regardless of whether it's a force ship or a team infantry out doing an exercise. Our focus really is on the individual level performance, but also on team knowledge and team cognition and really looking at those back and forth between team members. Whether or not they're able to communicate their knowledge to their team members to the level that the team members all understand what everyone is capable of, what their strengths and weaknesses are, those are the drivers of the team cognition concept. Teaching in some of the areas that training environments it's not hard to teach people to focus on those elements when they're out there teaching. - Ultimately we're giving them more of a left-loading perspective of what it's going to be like when they go out and do operations because we do rely on individual people to accomplish those main goals. - Absolutely. Really it does improve everybody (voices overlapping) more carefully. - And so when you look at that integration into operations from that perspective from collaborative learning, how do you see that shaking up over the next decade? - So right now there's a lot of integration happening (voices overlapping) into exercises such red flag, which is another area of combat training exercise that really gives an ability to do these really intense real world air combat sorties. One of the findings from red flag is that it enhances the team's communication during training (voices overlapping). It gives them a set of skills and communication that they wouldn't normally get because they are two distant scenarios (voices overlapping). The Army also does in their military training center, they do live fire team training so that has a very high fidelity training environment and they're kind of including that team cognition, team measurement of performance assessment environment where their training is. It isn't done. It's not being done (voices overlapping), which it probably should and really those (voices overlapping) how important we can consider (voices overlapping). - So I wanted to save the best for last and give you a little insight into my soul. There's now kind of a trend to move towards game-based learning and it has a serious foothold here. - It does have a serious foothold. There's some really amazing work (voice overlapping). Game and Research Integration Learning Lab at AFRL has really done a lot of great work with developing training environments that work with PTN. They work a lot with some of the maintenance training, some of the aircraft maintenance immersion. The cool thing about them is they actually teach students how to code. Teaching students how to code through development training (voices overlapping), but they're all game-based. Some of the things to think about, everybody wants to have a game. (voices overlapping) They're really excited to be there. It's got some (voices overlapping) put a lot of structure into it and teach some higher level decision making skills. There's lots of advantages to games. There's a lot of things that have to be thought of very carefully when we're talking games. We don't want to make them a distraction. We don't want to provide so much that the trainees are not learning what they're supposed to be learning, that they're not getting objectives that they are designed to get, and then if those objectives are not met, you're not going to have (voices overlapping). When a game is designed and the (voices overlapping) happen to affect the cognitive and physiological (voices overlapping) of the individual in the game, some of the more violent video games come to mind. As we are an air force we will see some violence, but then we use some of (voices overlapping) that need to be (voices overlapping) or over inundate them. - The science behind this is improving (voices overlapping). My son does them and his math shot up. (voices over lapping) - And it has some really great benefits. I didn't mean to downplay it by telling you that about the (voices overlapping). What are the implications? What are the (voices overlapping). The benefits are so good. The major (voices overlapping) It's really pertinent in terms of memory development because they're associated with (voices overlapping) environment (voices overlapping). - To transition because we have the tech. (voices overlapping) - So we've talked about (voices overlapping), but at the end of the day the bottom line is (voices overlapping). - If you can imagine, that is a really great opportunity for reducing training and overheard cost. - And of course we always have to be fiscally conscious. That's just the reality of every day for us in the Air Force. Transiting out from AR, VR, MR, so much to talk about, it's really incredible. One of General Kwast's big things when he took command a year and a half ago was creating the ability for airmen to access learning anywhere, anytime on any device and one of the ways, as we look forward to learning in 2030, is how do we do this in open source environments and make learning more accessible for airmen? - The open source environment's already there. We had two airmen go through, look for a specific topic area over 30 minutes. They found probably about 25 different sources that are out there on the web that actually had Air Force content and this is everything from Git Hub to YouTube to Code Project, some of the Microsoft sites as well as all of our social media sites. The content is out there. Really what the Air Force is working towards now is pulling it all into our own cloud. Really AETC is developing that repository, which will give us the ability to actually A, be able to easily find what we're looking for, to still allow people to create their own content, but it will also be curated and organized in a way that's easy to search and access. - And I think the really cool thing, too, is you talked about creating their own content, but I think also one of the goals was to create more of a learning community that fostered a collaborative learning environment. - That allows not only the learnees, but also the stakeholders to jump in. Maybe there's a new tech development that they want to get new information to the trainees, they can do that in a quick and easy way and have it readily accessible. - I think another cool thing that you do see often outside the Air Force is crowd sourced content. Content that is more popular, getting spread around more, because maybe there's value in it. - Absolutely, absolutely. People who are able to establish themselves as experts, their information is often more widely disseminated, as well. - Lots going on in that arena and it transitions us nicely to collaborative learning and trends both in terms of inside the classroom, as well as cognition and training as we would fight, so to speak, and then performance from a team perspective. So let's start in the classroom. Kind of a shift in thinking there big time. - Absolutely. The way that we're looking now at collaborative learning and really flipping the classroom upside down is really to have the students teach each other and to learn in teams. When students teach each other, it gives them an ability to deeply process the information because they have to internalize it and then they have to process it at a level where they can explain it to someone else. So they're teaching it to themselves and then teaching it to someone else, which doubles the exposure of the information that they're getting. And then also when they receive information from other people, from other students, it's also strengthening their knowledge representations. In the classroom, you're really changing your level of focus from yes you're looking at an individual, but the team and all of the other people on it are not going to be successful unless everybody works together. All of our working environments are also built that way, as well. Not only changing the way that we're providing instruction. Does it actually help the students? Yes. It also has the additional benefit of preparing them to go out into the force because they're learning more of those team collaboration coordination abilities along side of their knowledge development. - That really transitions to, again, instructors and their changing role of how they're going to end up facilitating by maybe being the primary instructor in a lot of scenarios, but there's already some applications being put it place from a classroom perspective in AETC, at Keesler, and at Air University. - They really are showing some great success. Like you mentioned, it really does change that instructor role of they have to kind of change the way that they develop their curriculum and their syllabi to enable the students to teach each other and really use the technology that they have at their fingertips and maybe get some different technology, like some smart whiteboards on the wall as facilitation tools both for the individuals and for the instructor. The instructor is also monitoring learning. If the learning is not occurring on a specific topic, he can stop the class from doing the team activity and jump in and lecture everybody to get them all back where they need to be. So more of a path director facilitator role than a lecturer. A guide on the side versus a sage on the stage. Really changing that fundamental role of instruction. - Looking at the team concept and the cognition and training as we would fight, this future of learning really looks at performance measurement from a group perspective. - Individual performance measurement is very, very important, but we do function as teams regardless of whether it's a force ship or a team of infantry out doing an exercise. Our focus really needs to be not only on the individual level of performance, but also on group knowledge and team cognition and really looking at those back and forth communication between team members. Whether or not they're able to communicate their knowledge to their team members to the level that the team members all understand what everybody else is capable of, what their strengths and weaknesses are, those are the drivers really of the team cognition concept and really should be some of the areas that even in our training environments it's not hard to teach people to focus on those elements when they're interacting in teams. - Ultimately we're giving them more of a left-loading perspective of what it's going to be like when they go out into the operational Air Force because we do end up relying on individual people to accomplish those team goals. - Absolutely. It does encourage everybody to work together a little bit more carefully. - When you look at that integration into operations from that perspective from collaborative learning, how do you see that shaking up over the next decade? - So right now there's a lot of integration with collaborative learning and team cognitions into exercises such as red flag, which is an air to air combat training exercise. Really gives an ability to do these really intense real world air combat sorties and one of the findings from red flag is that it enhances their team communication during training and beyond. It gives them a set of skills and communication that you wouldn't normally get because they do design the scenarios during red flag so the teams have to rely very heavily on each other. The Army also does in their military training center at Fort Irwin they do live fire team training so they actually have a very high fidelity training environment and they're kind of creating that team cognition, team measurement performance assessment environment for their training, as well. It is being done. It's not being done as widely as it probably should and really this is a call to really look at how are the ways that we can consider integrating some of these great findings into our operational training units? - I wanted to save the best for last and give you a little insight into my soul, but there's now kind of a trend to move towards game-based learning and it has a serious foothold here. - It does have a serious foothold and there's some really amazing work going on across the Air Force in game-based learning. The Gaming Research Integration Learning Lab at AFRL has really done a lot of great work with developing training environments. They work a lot with PTN. They worked a lot with some of the maintenance training. Some of the aircraft maintenance immersion training. The cool thing about them is they actually teach students how to code. As teaching students how to code, they're developing these training environments, but they're all game-based. Some of the things to think about. Everybody wants to have a game as training. One, it gets buy-in, you're getting engaged learners that are really excited to be there. It's got some great components to it. You can put a lot of structure into it and teach some higher level decision making and planning skills. There's lots of advantages to games. There's a lot of things that have to be thought of very carefully when you're designing games for learning. Like distraction. You don't want to provide so much that the trainees are not learning what they're supposed to be learning, that they're not getting the objectives that are designed into the game and then if those objectives are not met, you're not going to have any transfer of training, so that's definitely going to affect that. The way a game is designed and the components within the game can also affect the cognitive and physiological factors of the individuals in the game so some of the more violent video games come to mind. Of course we are an air force. They will see some violence, but there may be some other elements that need to be carefully controlled, as well. You don't want to overload them with information or over inundate them so that they miss things either. - Really the science behind this has proven effective. They're doing this in elementary schools with math. - They are. - My son does it and his math shot up and he's excited to do it because it's, he's learning math in the context of a game so it seems a lot more fun to him. - It is and it has some really great benefits. I don't mean to downplay it by telling you about the implications, but the benefits are so great with game-based learning. A lot of people don't think about okay so what are the implications, what are the other things I should consider? Really though, the benefits are so good. Really the major thing is, like I said, the engagement, the motivation to be there and learn. It's really promoting long-term memory development because they're associating a meaningful environment with the context. - It's a transition because by the time we're perhaps able to really implement that on a broader scale, those future airmen will have grown up with that kind of learning, so it won't even necessarily seem brand new to our future airmen. - Right. They will maintain or should maintain the engagement motivation that they had originally, just because is a much more meaningful way to present information. - So we've talked about a ton of stuff today. This is all great stuff, but at the end of the day the bottom line is if we're not leaning forward, we're gonna get left behind. - I think that really in a lot of ways this feature assessment is really a strategy that we need to get back to employing. We were really, really good at in as an air force for a long time and I think really that looking more at these trends and kind of pushing our strategy in that direction is going to be the way that we can rebuild our Air Force leading edge and really get back out in front of the trends and be the drivers of the trends again. - I just want to say thanks for dropping by. This has been good stuff. - Thank you. - So that'll do it. Episode 11 of the podcast in the books. Just some really amazing things to think about as we move along the continuum of learning and force development path here in the First Command. What will learning look like in the year 2030 and are you plugged in? We want to say thank you to Doctor Covas-Smith for stopping by and sharing her knowledge with us. We certainly appreciate that. As a reminder, you can follow Air Education and Training Command via social media on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as well as on the web at www.aetc.af.mil www.aetc.af.mil www.aetc.af.mil Thanks for checking out the podcast today as we dive into the world of recruiting, training, and education. For our entire AETC public affairs staff, I'm Dan Hawkins. So long! We'll talk to you next time on Developing Mach-21 Airmen. (industrial music)