Upon inprocessing in early September, students were repeatedly told that this course of study was meant to be a "graduate level" learning experience. I have reflected on this quite a bit, and having a graduate degree from a small school in Boston, I feel like I'm qualified to make an objective comparison between the experience I had in Boston, and this "graduate level" experience. First, I will summarize what I believe the hallmarks of a graduate level experience are, then I will compare and contrast my experiences. Finally, I will set up a one question survey that my classmates can log into and give me their anonymous opinion on whether or not this qualifies as a graduate level learning experience.
1) Aptitude testing. When applying to MIT, I had to take the GRE. Once accepted, grad students there take a "qualifying" exam to guage their level of physics knowledge. Afterwards, they are given a program of remediation to account for any deficiencies; they then have one year to retake and pass the exam. Here at ILE, we were asked to do four pre-tests online prior to attending the school. These exams were mostly trivial and could be answered mostly with what I had learned as a young captain at another Army school. After reporting, we were administered a written essay test, the Prentice Hall diagnostic test, the Nelson Denny reading test, and a vocabulary test. For the most part, the comparisons are somewhat equivalent, even though I would consider the battery of testing administered here at ILE to be somewhat trivial and much less challenging than the GRE, or even the SAT for that matter. Another minor point is that when briefing the students their results, the faculty did not include the standard deviation of the population of students along with the mean.
2) Graduate level learning focuses on the higher levels of bloom's taxonomy. If you would like to see a quick reference of bloom's taxonomy, click here:
http://uwf.edu/cutla/images/bloom_taxonomy.jpg
At MIT, I was told to find a research group, conduct a research project, and write a thesis based on my research. This was my singular graduation requirement. Needless to say, conducting a research project under the guise of an expert faculty member required me to use the skills on the upper part of the taxonomy: Create, evaluate, and analyze. Sure, there was some knowledge acquisition and comprehension, but it was a small proportion of my efforts and went towards supporting the higher level tasks. Here, we rarely use the cognitive skills at the top of the pyramid. Almost each course of instruction includes some pre-reading (knowledge) and then the instructor goes through a bevy of powerpoint slides and asks a series of fill-in-the-blank questions (comprehension). Although there is some, I stress some, analysis, it is small in proportion to the skills at the bottom of the pyramid. Sometimes I feel like I am in a three hour long mad-lib session. To me, the skills knowledge and comprehension equate to training, and the higher skills equate to education. We all know what the Army as an institution is good at: training. Maybe we should change the title of the course to "Intermediate Level Training."
3) Setting a course of self-study. Once I found a research group, my advisor gave me about 60 days to come up with a suitable project. Notice, the onus was on me to set my course of study and examination. Here, we are subjected to a pre-programmed schedule of courses. The only flexibility lies within a few written requirements whereby students can choose one topic vice another. An example of the kind of flexibility that I would like to see is this: We take a 25 hour "History of Western Warfare" course. Why not offer as a choice three different types of historical analyses, maybe an asian history, a middle eastern history, and a western history? (And why are we studying the history of our allies when we should be studying the history of our enemies? I digress, that deserves its own post.) I recognize that some topics need to be covered, but integrating a system of electives or self-study would enrich the curriculum.
What do you think? Does this equate to a graduate level learning experience? Please vote using the survey link below:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=oYDIn4mGALGh_2bmtqgUlvIA_3d_3d
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The views expressed in the blog response are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government...ok, now that the JAG got his cut, on with the show.
ReplyDeleteI am most certain that ILE at Fort Lee does make a reasonable attempt to perform at the graduate level however again, as much as it pains me, agree with MAJ Palazzo.
I have an undergrad degree in business communication. What is that you may ask? Well it is similar to the case studies that we participated in for L100. But, I covered those type of items in my freshman and sophomore year!
Our Senior pacticum required small groups create companies from scratch, working with local industry and implementing training methods to increase it's efficiency.
I would like to see electives offered that close the bridge between the 4 month and 10 month courses. Some advanced strategy focusing on assymetric warfare perhaps. Afterall, isn't that what we are going to be fighting over the next 25 years?
I agree further that the history course and leadership as I mentioned earlier could be offered as electives.
The views expressed in this blog response are my own and do not reflect the official policy or position of the Department of the Army, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to comment on the History curriculum and its emphasis relative to the other subjects covered in ILE. In a nutshell, I recommend: (1) doubling the History component of the curriculum, (2) dedicating the added hours to studying the history of counterinsurgency and of the Arab world/Middle East/Islam, and (3) reducing the hours spent on other subjects to account for the added time in History. I will comment on each of these recommendations in turn.
(1) I recommend doubling the History content of ILE because I think it has utility in helping us envision appropriate responses to the current operational environment and doing so at a "graduate level." I don't see any need to change the current History curriculum, although I'd like it to progress historically through WWII rather than culminating with WWI. I think that it's helpful to understand the evolution of western warfare because it's part of understanding how our military came to be the way it is.
(2) I'd like to dedicate the added time equally to studying counterinsurgency generally and the history of the Arab world/Middle East/Islam. Counterinsurgencies have been conducted from time immemorial, as far back as the Romans and probably before that. There are many shibboleths passed off as truisms regarding counterinsurgency that arguably don't hold up to historical analysis. For example, it's not uncommon to hear people claim either than Afghanistan cannot be pacified (although it has been in the past), or that counterinsurgencies in general are destined to fail (although many have succeeded). It would be helpful for us to have more historical context for comparing and contrasting current situations to those of the past. Also, we should learn more about Arab, Middle Eastern, and Islamic history in general (not limited to military history) to better understand the operational environment, our allies in the region, and our enemies.
(3) To account for the expanded History curriculum, I would reduce a corresponding number of hours from the courses dealing with national security, national strategy, tactics, and MDMP. Simply put, we spend too much time on MDMP and analysing case studies of different strategic scenarios. Those things are important, but there is a point of diminishing returns when they are done, somewhat repetitively, in a classroom environment. After a couple of times going through an MDPMP type process in the classroom, additional iterations of similar exercises yields little return. Those things will "stick" when we do them in the real world again.
So those are my recommendations, I welcome any thoughts or comments. Thanks for the opporunity to air my views.