(upbeat music) - Roger 4807, approaching Runway Seven Bravo. - The Air Force has announced the creation of a new information operations technical training school. (aircraft whooshing) - So in our business of national security, where our job is to fly, fight, and win, we'd better be masters at this game of innovation. - Air Force Basic Military Training has an updated curriculum with a new focus on readiness and lethality-- (microphone crackling) - This is the Developing Mach-21 Airmen podcast. (loud explosion booms) Hey, everybody, welcome in to Developing Mach-21 Airmen and thanks for the subscribe, stream, or download. If you get a chance to throw us some stars or even a review, we certainly would appreciate that. Well, episode number seven today, of the podcast. 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, education, and training field. Before we get into today's topic, just wanna say thank you for the great response to Developing Mach-21 Airmen, we've had a ton of emails and even requests to get on the podcast. The whole idea was really to connect with airmen in a more relatable and modern way, and so if we're doin' that, we're pretty happy about it, and it seems like the reception has been really great, so thank you to everybody out there. Episode seven of the podcast today, and we go all the way to Missouri to do it. Awesome sit-down with Master Sergeant Brian Dudley from the 368th Training Squadron based at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, which is part of the 82nd Training Wing, headquartered at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. Sergeant Dudley is the Emergency Manager Training Flight Chief and he also spends a lot of time teaching as well. Their team at the 368th realized during curriculum development that they needed some help due to some of the same issues affecting all of us, one of the major ones, of course, being manpower and also time. Utilizing that coordinated approach that included the Civil Engineering Career Field Manager, as well as the Air Force Civil Engineer Center which is located down at Tyndall Air Force Base, or AFCEC, they were able to source emergency management SMEs from across the career field to help them revamp the curriculum that is set to roll out in May of 2019. Sergeant Dudley talks about the entire process from start to finish, including how the idea was hatched, the buy-in from the field that happened before they even got started, and how, interestingly enough, the course was redesigned in a way they never imagined when they started down this road. Sergeant Dudley also spent time talking through some of the changes specifically, including the use of virtual reality to help transform scenario-based training at their Babb Airfield training site, and how AFCEC is helping supply tablets that are being used throughout training, all of this, of course, in an effort to turn out emergency managers who are more lethal and ready to execute their missions in the operational Air Force. Sergeant Dudley, being a big food guy who loves analogies, he's gonna tell you how the course went from being a hamburger to a taco, as second and third order effects of the SME involvement, and it's pretty great stuff. So let's get to it. Episode seven of Developing Mach-21 Airmen starts right now. (aircraft whooshing) So, tell me a little bit about yourself. How long you been in the Air Force? - I've been in the Air Force for approximately 14.5 years. Been deployed three times. This is my fifth assignment here at Fort Leonard Wood. I've been there for approximately three and a half years. I was an instructor for most of that time. I am right now the flight chief, but I still am in the classroom nearly every day. - So you're training Emergency Management classes, but what is an emergency manager, you know, in the elevator sense, what is it you do? - Emergency manager is someone who works in the emergency management readiness and emergency management flight in civil engineering. It's one of the six civil engineering flights. And what we do is respond to, recover from, prepare for, respond to, and recover from any and all incidents. So what's an incident? An incident is anything that necessitates a response to, in order to mitigate it. So natural disasters, man-made disasters, peacetime disasters, such as a HAZMAT spill, enemy attack, terrorist events, those are all things that we are going to plan for, execute the Incident Command System, in order to help respond to and recover from that, operate the Emergency Operations Center, we train the entire wing in CBRN defense survival skills, which is something that people would probably recognize us the most for, when they see us, oh, hey, it's the chem guys. But we do so much more than that. - So obviously, at Fort Leonard Wood, there's more than just the basic apprentice course goin' on. What all do you teach there at Fort Leonard Wood? - We have a 74-day apprentice course, we also have a 10-day in-residence craftsman course, but we also host and manage a prerequisite course before students can attend the craftsman course. We have what's called the CBRN, Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear CBRN Command and Control Course, which is where we teach five and seven levels, some detailed chemical plume modeling warning and reporting, as well as biological and nuclear plume modeling warning and reporting. That's a valuable skill. That's something that is dictated by NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. So we have to operate in the metric system, and learn some of the codes that somebody from Poland or Italy or Norway or Canada would all be using, since we don't all speak the same language. We all speak the same chemical language, so it's a very important skill for an emergency manager to have. And then we also have the journeyman course, which is managed online out of Fort Leonard Wood. - So you guys do a lot there, and so talking about curriculum and curriculum development, obviously that's a big task when you're looking across all of those different courses, and how best to develop the curriculum so we can develop more lethal and ready airmen, who are ready to go out and execute your mission, so you guys came up with an interesting concept that, you know, not sure how widespread it really is, but talk a little bit about where the genesis of the idea to really go out to the field and get those SMEs who are out there, the subject matter experts, to come and help you develop your curriculum moving forward. - The short answer is that it came from a lack of manpower. If every instructor is in the classroom every day, how do we effectively develop a new course? We had a career field Specialty Training Requirement Team meet in April of 2018. There were a few proficiency codes that were changed for some of the tasks that we already do. We incorporated the new National Defense Strategy, that came out October of 2017, and that identified kind of more clearly who it was we were preparing to contain, who it was we were preparing to fight, the types of weapons that they use, talking about chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, CBRN, their missile systems. So we had to incorporate that into not just our apprentice course, which is kind of our flagship product, what everybody knows us for, but all of those courses that I discussed. So how do we do that effectively, in a short period of time, with people that might not have all of that real world experience to talk about? So maybe we have an instructor that is a fast burner four-year staff sergeant, great NCO, great instructor, however maybe has never responded to a plane crash, or taken an actual chemical sample in a war zone where chemical weapons are being used. So we decided, and when I say we, the person who came up with this was the flight chief who was in the position before me, Master Sergeant Jennifer Zerby, it was primarily her idea to say, we don't have the manpower to do this the right way. We also don't have the experience to do this as good as it could be done, so reaching out to the career field, and getting the buy-in from the career field manager, from the Air Force Civil Engineer Center who's been a huge supporter of this project, some of the contractors, the applied research associates, ARA, that works as a contractor for, the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, AFCEC, and even our squadron, and the support that we've gotten from our parent unit at Sheppard. That's kind of how it happened. We said, well, we don't have the manpower to do it, we don't have the experience to do it the best it could be done. Let's see what the career field wants. And the end result of that has not just been the career field helping us write a few products, it has been a complete rewrite of our course. - And we're gonna talk about that, but what did that process actually look like in terms of, how did you get it organized, how were you able to, you talked about getting the buy-in, how did you earn that buy-in, so what does this process look like for somebody who hasn't done it? - It was largely the school and the way of Master Sergeant Zerby working with the career field manager, Chief Master Sergeant Trenholm, who's up at the Pentagon, and the Air Force Civil Engineer Center, the Tyndall branch, Mr. Connors, who manages a lot of our programs from there, talking to them and saying, I want to get some volunteers to come to Fort Leonard Wood to do this. Air Force Civil Engineer Center said, well, it would be cheaper, and we're closer to a lot more resources if we do that at Tyndall. So that's where this actually all happened is, we solicited the MAJCOMs for some people that had unique identifiers, some of the hotshots in the career field, if you will, some people that had a lot of experience and that were enthusiastic to help us develop a better product to better serve the career field and by proxy, the Air Force. So we got all of them together, they looked at what we had, and if I may paint a picture here... We basically had a cheeseburger that we were just gonna put some brown mustard instead of some yellow mustard on there, and then give it back to our customer, the career field, but the customer said, that's not what really meets our needs. So we wanna take those same basic ingredients and turn it into something that is more useful to us. So we took that same, the bones of the curriculum, and reorganized it to make it a more cumulative process. That way, when the students arrived at their gaining unit, they had some more tangible skills. Yes, we were meeting all the proficiency codes and all the specialty training standard line items with our current course, but the course that we're releasing in May goes above and beyond that and gives the customer, the career field, a better product. So we took the beef patty and we spiced it up and we took the cheese and shredded it and we took the lettuce and tomato, the same product, the carb delivery device, instead of a bun, we've got a tortilla, so instead of the stale old burger that we're just warming up in the microwave, we're giving them a spicy taco that they want. And that's going to give them a better product, and serve their needs better. - It's interesting because I think proficiency coming out of technical training is always an issue, not just in the emergency management career field, but I think maybe in a lot of career fields, an airman gets trained to a certain standard, you know, at X point in training, and then they're forced to recall it three months later when they're at their first duty station, or even longer than that, and they don't really have that cumulative experience with that topic throughout training, and so there's almost like a reteach going on. So tell me about that thought process, and how you guys really worked to kind of try to fix that issue, specifically. - So we have a little bit of that in our curriculum as it is. I'll use a compass for an example. It's something that everybody can visualize. So I've got a student in block three of training, and we have 10 total blocks right now. Block three of training, I teach them how to use a compass. I've got 12 students, I've got two hours to teach 'em to a 2b proficiency level on how to use a compass. They can tell me the three parts of the compass, they can tell me what the black numbers mean, what the red numbers mean, they can tell me that there are 17.7 milliradians in a degree, great. So they passed that block of instruction, they move on to the next block of instruction, where they have to, about a week and a half later, actually use that compass again in the field, and we don't see a lot of proficiency there. So we have to spend time reteaching. We also send these students then on to their first gaining unit, where it's been four, five, six months since they've last touched a compass, and if they have to use that piece of equipment, it's as if they've never seen it before. Even though they've gotten the training, they've passed the test, we have to continuously use that. So our new curriculum looks at all the building blocks of how to make a proficient emergency responder, and we incorporate that throughout the training, so we're showing them the compass early in training, and then we're continuously using it throughout training, that way they get that repetition and they become actually proficient in that equipment. Additionally, something we identified is, we don't have a lot of multiple instructors for the equipment. We've got safety multiple instructors, MIRs, we call 'em in AETC, so if I have to split people up geographically, I'm going to have a safety MIR out there to make sure that nothing bad happens to any of the students. But we didn't have a lot of those written into our curriculum to be actual multiple instructors. So instead of having 12 students, to teach them how to use a compass in two hours, if I have three multiple instructors, and I can split those students up to a ratio of three students to one instructor, I can get much more detailed and much more practiced with my small group of students, so that their initial training gives them a much better grasp on what it is they're going to use. That way, when they do have to use it, days or weeks later, they've got a much better foundation. - And interestingly enough, and it's not a surprise, the field, when you reached out to them, came back with a lot of great input in terms of things that they're able to do now at places like Silver Flag, you talked about earlier, when we were off air, so kind of go into that, what the field was able to bring to your curriculum development that has really helped with this new course that'll be rolling out. - So what we have is our basic bones of the STS, and these are the line items. So we had it grouped up into, we're gonna teach you radiological response, but we're gonna teach you everything soup to nuts about radiological response in this period of eight days. And then we're not gonna touch radiation or that topic again throughout the rest of your training. So what the career field had was, well, if we're having these all-hazard responses, why are we not then teaching piece by piece, that building block, and then working them up to an all-hazard response, and then tying in receiver and control center, and then tying that in in a comprehensive exercise at the end? There's a huge group of emergency managers out there who all remember a comprehensive exercise at the end of technical training. So when I was a student, we couldn't brain dump the compass, the radiation detection devices, because we had to use that and tie it all together at the end of training, and we were being evaluated at the very end. So we've worked back to doing that, and that wouldn't have been done if the career field didn't say, this is what we remember, this is how we were able to be, we feel, maybe more proficient as responders early in our careers, because we had this training. So yes, we're still giving 'em all of the STS line items, but the way that we're presenting it is completely restructured. So the career field having that input in what they wanted to see would not have happened if we did not reach out to them for that curriculum development support, so the entirety of what the course looks like is because of the curriculum development team. - And really, a lot of exciting things happening in terms of new additions to the course, which are in line with General Kwast's strategic plan for AETC, of bringing immersive technology into the learning environment. So one of the things is tablets from AFCEC, potentially moving into the future. - That's something that wouldn't have happened if we didn't do the curriculum development team, hosted by AFCEC at Tyndall, and then also Chief Master Sergeant Gilday from AFIMSC, being a big supporter and having big involvement in that, so we're getting our tablets with a 3E9 virtual classroom on there, so the students are going to have access to all of the study material, all of the publications, all of the TTPs, in one spot. If the student is reading about an M295 decontamination mitt, they're going to get the facts and figures about it, see a static picture of it, okay, they come to class, I show 'em how to use it, however, what if in their dorm room they can tap something on their screen and see a 30-second video of somebody taking it out of the package, inspecting it, and using it. Then they're going to have a much better idea when they get to class, so that we can use the Socratic method, which is what AETC wants from us, so we can ask 'em those leading questions, so that we can get the discussion going versus me repeating facts from the front of the classroom, which is not the most effective way to deliver information. But we also have live science demos. If I am telling a class that there are X amount of milligrams per meter cubed, what does that mean to them? We typically don't use the metric system, so okay, well, that looks like a teaspoon, well what's a meter cubed or a meter square look like? Well, some of the developers at the Air Force Civil Engineer Center have given us products to visually demonstrate these things, so having PVC pipe square on the ground and then sprinkling 2.5 milligrams of salt in there and showing the students, that this is what we're talking about here. This is what X amount of milligrams looks like, this is what a meter cubed looks like, a meter square looks like, so those are pretty low-tech demos, but when we come to the high-tech stuff, that ARA's working with us on, next week they're coming out to our training area, every emergency manager knows Babb Airfield, Training Area two one niner. They're coming out there to do a LIDAR scan, so they can show our buildings, show our airstrip, show our downed F-4 that's out there, that we use to practice response, show that entire area, and then develop scenarios of missiles inbound, of bomblets being dropped, of vehicle-borne IED at the gate, all these different scenarios we're going to use for our apprentice students, use for planning, practice in our prerequisite course, use for our craftsman students. That way, they will see the scenario happen where it is that they actually are, or have previously been, so that they establish a baseline of where they are, they go outside, and then we've recreated that atmosphere, we have the smoking crater that they saw, we've got the bomblets covering X amount of the airfield, we have the contamination cloud in the area of the base where the wind would've blown it based off of the scenario, so none of that would've happened if we did not have the curriculum development team. These are all ideas that they came up with that AFCEC and ARA and AFIMSC were able to then farm out, and say okay, well we've identified the funding for this, we've identified who can do this. So all these resources were out there that we just didn't have any idea of. And if it wasn't for all the SMEs getting together and saying, "Hey, wouldn't this be great? "Okay, how do we make it happen?" and taking it off and making it happen and giving us these products to help us develop the airmen, we feel that that wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the curriculum development team. - So when you look at all these things in the totality and all the goodness that's coming out of this, where is everybody's heads at in terms of the end result? How do you guys feel about this and how excited are you to actually roll this product out? - We can't wait. We're getting more manning as a result of adding the multiple instructors to all of the different equipment blocks, all of the different practical application blocks and objectives. So we don't have all the manning that we are expecting in order to start the class, but we're starting it in May in order to get it started. We can wait and continue with the current course and we're still fulfilling our obligations to the career field that way, but we want to, we're excited to, give the career field what it is that is going to fulfill their needs and our needs because that's the career field we're going back to when we're done with our time in the AETC. I'm going to be deploying with the airmen that I've trained. I was deployed with one of my tech school instructors back in 2008. So we are very excited. There's still that bit of apprehension as to, okay, we're going to have to now instruct a new plan of instruction that we haven't before because now if we get a new instructor, okay, I'm gonna put you behind our 368th Training Squadron Instructor of the Year Sergeant Riley, I'm gonna put you behind her, observe this block of instruction, do your subject matter testing, do your internship, and then walk into it. So we're all starting fresh. So there's a little bit of apprehension there. I don't want to say nervousness because we've got a crack squad of professionals and fantastic NCOs and instructors who I know are going to do a fantastic job. So there's that little measure, but I'd say 95% excitement and that little bit of, okay, we're gonna have to go through validation and some things will probably change as far as times, but that's what the whole validation process is for. - And we didn't talk about this, so springing a surprise on you. But I'm just curious, was there a surprise out of all of this other than the fact that this course totally looks different than what it did? Was there something else that really stood out to you as a surprise? You were just like, wow, didn't see that coming? - The degree of support that we got from some of those agencies I mentioned. Our squadron, very supportive. The training development elements out of our squadron also have been a huge help because that's a lot of work for them, when it comes to rearranging the plan and instruction that's been pretty static over the last several years because our last STRT was 2012. So the curriculum has been tied to that for a number of years. So that created for a lot of work. But the career field manager, AFCEC, the contract support through ARA, AFIMSC and Chief Gilday. Just the amount that came out of Master Sergeant Zurby's idea of hey, let's get some support, spicing up the curriculum to meet the new STS. The amount of products that have come out of it, versus, okay, here's our study guide, here are our slideshows, all the video presentations that ARA is helping us create, all of the products in the way of graphs and designs and charts and 3-D mock-ups of an atomic weapon, the scenarios, the tablets, the science demos, just the amount of products and the amount of support. Not that we didn't expect support, we just got so much more than what we were expecting, so that was a good surprise. - Yeah, it's so exciting. It can breathe new life into being an instructor because you are now being forced to kind of rechallenge yourselves as instructors and maybe even reimagine yourself as an instructor because you're gonna be on this new path as well. So I would suspect for the staff this has to be a little bit of apprehension but a lot of excitement. - Absolutely. What's resulted from this process is me coming here to present the idea to the rest of AETC and to appear on this podcast. But what I've learned from being at the professional learning consortium, I'm going to be able to take back to my squadron in the technical training school that I work for and look at some of the things that we've been doing that maybe might not be the most effective ways of studying and testing. So, the highlighting, the keyword association, that have been kind of our bread and butter when it comes to teaching students how to learn, are not the most effective ways. So the cumulative instruction, we didn't know it, that that's really the way to go. And then the quizzes and the self-tests and the practices and the fill-in-the-blank versus multiple choice, just the repetition and applying it in new and different ways and having students be able to form things with their own words versus repeating definitions. So that's going to be a huge benefit for the faculty and for our students and by proxy the career field because the curriculum development team did all they did and because I came here to be their spokesperson. And that's a huge honor because I wasn't super involved in that team, but I get to be the champion of that. So that's a huge honor for me to represent the squadron in the career field in that way. It's gonna be a benefit to the whole flight and the whole squadron that I work for back at Fort Leonard Wood because I was able to come here, because the curriculum development team did everything they did. - So, recommendations for somebody else out there as they look at their curriculum? And we've talked a little bit about them, but what are the headlines? What are the things that they should be looking at as they maybe look at this process and how to involve their career field in their curriculum development? - Get as much buy-in as you can because there are resources out there that you have no idea that they exist that, in many cases, are free. And they're out there and they're just waiting for somebody to use them. So talk to your CFN, talk to the MAJCOM functionals, see who they have that is willing and able to support you, because you're going to find -- in our case, anyways -- a lot more support than you knew was there or that you expected to be there. So reach out, get that experience. If we're developing curriculum about aircraft accidents, guess what? There's somebody out there who's responded to six or seven aircraft accidents and they're going to be able to bring all that real-world experience into your curriculum so that an instructor, who maybe doesn't have that experience, is going to be able to leverage that. So talk to as many people as you can. You're gonna find a lot of interest out there. That would be my highlighted recommendation, is look for that buy-in because it's gonna be there. - Yeah, and the SMEs are out there. And I think, you've probably found through this process, like all airmen, they want to help. Your teammates that are out in the field, they want to help you put out those high-quality airmen who are lethal and ready to execute the emergency manager position wherever they might go. So I really want to say thanks for your time and coming out today and we've enjoyed having you on the podcast. - Well, I certainly enjoyed being here. And again, I'm so pleased and honored and humbled to be able to represent 368th Training Squadron, represent the emergency management career field, and talk about all the great work the curriculum development team did. Huge shout-out to everybody that's helped us along the way. Big props to all the instructors who are going to be implementing this and the fine work that they do. And thank you very much for having me. (airplane whooshing) - Lots to take away from Master Sergeant Dudley and his team out at the 368th out at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri in terms of curriculum development. We want to say thank you to Sergeant Dudley for taking time out of his busy schedule. He was here in town on a TY and he stopped by to talk curriculum development with us. 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. Thanks for checking out the podcast 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.