JOINT BASE SAN ANTONIO-RANDOLPH, Texas -- The sixth episode of "Developing Mach-21 Airmen," Air Education and Training Command's podcast series, was released April 1.
In the episode, a team of experts from the Squadron Officer School at Air University talk about how they are flipping the classroom, adopting immersive training (including VR, AR, mixed reality) into the learning experience space, helping to better professionally develop Air Force captains!
Toni Scribner, a doctoral candidate who has spent a ton of time helping develop the squadron officer school curriculum, as well as Captains Anita Sims and Casey Neville from the SOS staff, talk about the successes and challenges of adopting some of this immersive technology, as well as the thought process that goes into the process of both the adoption & integration of the new approach.
Scribner also talks about the need to think about these changes in terms of the culture, scalability in design, as well the flipping the classroom trend happening in education right now.
Sims and Neville discuss the excitement level of students as they either participated in or observed the new mixed-reality, avatar based counseling scenario exercises that are now part of the curriculum. They also talk about why being an SOS instructor can really help a young company grade officer grow professionally in ways they never imagined.
The professional development podcasts are designed to help communicate and inform Total Force Airmen across the globe on relevant, timely topics related to the recruiting, training, education and development fields and can be listened to on the government network on the AETC website, or via mobile application as well as on Apple Podcasts (iTunes). For Android or Google mobile users, the podcast can be found on their favorite third-party podcast phone application.
Future episodes are set to cover a wide range of topics, including a feature on a military training leader and resilience; what learning might look like in 2030; how a technical training student at Sheppard Air Force Base helped the 82nd Training Wing break a long-held, industrial-age paradigm regarding time as the constant, and much more.