Military Police contains information about military police functions in maneuver and mobility support, area security, law and order, internment/resettlement, and police intelligence operations.
Issue link: https://militarypolice.epubxp.com/i/383260
MILITARY POLICE . 19-14-2 15 I n the early 1980s, under the auspices of the U.S. Air Force, brothers Stuart E. Dreyfus and Hubert L. Dreyfus proposed a fve-stage skill acquisition model that describes a theoretical approach to moving a learner from novice to expert. (The original proposal included a mastery level, which was later removed.) The model describes the attributes and constraints of a learner as he or she moves from novice, to advanced beginner, to competent, to profcient and, fnally, to expert. It also vividly describes the process involved in an educator shaping curricula to meet the needs of learners based on their assessed skill levels within a particular content area and then facilitating capability and competence development. The authors of the Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition argue that ". . . skill in its minimal form is produced by following abstract formal rules, but that only experiences with concrete cases can account for high levels of performance." 1 This philosophy coincides with the mandate presented in U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Pamphlet (Pam) 525-8-2, The U.S. Learning Concept for 2015, in which Army trainers and educators are charged to create an agile and responsive learning environment that promotes integrative thinking. 2 A framework such as that of the Dreyfus brothers enables the promotion of structuralist, whole-task, and perceptually based methodologies and the implementation of an instructional practice that directly supports 21st century skills. The skill levels of the Dreyfus model correlate with the career progression and key developmental positions held by lower-enlisted Soldiers, noncommissioned offcers, and offcers. As personnel begin initial-entry training, they are at the novice skill level and, based on aptitude and past experience, may garner rudimentary advanced-beginner skills before departing advanced individual training or a basic offcer leader course. Through experiential learning gained from duty assignments, Soldiers build competence. As they enter the U.S. Army distributed learning system, their experiences are scaffolded at key points along the career continuum. 3 For example, Soldiers in a senior leader course or a captain career course are expected to be competent or profcient and Soldiers in an advanced leader course or in intermediate-level education are expected to be profcient and moving toward expert. This correlation of skill level and career progression is critical for the development of training programs—not only to capture knowledge-based expectations of learners before their arrival at courses, but also to take into account their previous experiences so that those experiences may be met by the course content, thereby streamlining and improving the relevance of the programs. This can be achieved by developing whole-task curricula that progressively become more perceptual and insightful at each stage. This means developing viable curricula that—rather than presenting the detached aspects of tasks—provide the tasks as a whole, with some parts highlighted. The works of Max Wertheimer indicate that this instructional approach enables learners to connect their experiences to the content as a holistic entity; whereas, through separate task learning, learners might not be able to tie the loose pieces together. 4 In addition, the whole-task approach takes advantage of the natural tendency of the human mind to group content. Presenting the content as a whole eliminates possible errors within the structure building while further developing critical and integrative thinking by challenging the learner with relevant and complex situations. The whole-task methodology can be better understood by further examining the defnitions of the various stages of skill acquisition (see Table 1, page 16). 5 The novice is exposed to, and confned by, deconstructed rules of performance that are free of context. These are the process fundamentals that must be adequately grasped in order to build upon learning. The advanced beginner is exposed to the application of rules within specifed situations—usually cause-and-effect situations that enable the learner to make connections, but still at a very basic level. Competence marks the beginning of the application of rules within an analytical framework. Competent learners are capable of orienting themselves within the content and perceiving the integrated nature of the situation. When exposed to situations that have a multitude of choices, competent learners use an integrated approach in applying rules to make choices. The ability of the learner to decipher relevant information, assess perspectives, and visualize outcomes is key to the decisionmaking process. Profciency builds upon competence and is nourished by experiences that enable intuitive responses to problems. Profcient learners can immediately visualize a problem and, in a holistic manner, devise a plan to redress the concerns. The expert stage is achieved when an individual is capable of immediately responding without deconstructing the situation. An expert has a very deep knowledge of what works. It is important that the trainer know how far along the learning continuum he or she can lead the learner and where the learner needs to assume ownership of the process. The role of the trainer is quite signifcant during the novice stage of skill acquisition, but is slowly reduced to facilitator and then to mentor and coach as the learner progresses through