Military Faculty Development at the Post-Graduate Level: Using the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model with Curriculum-Based Leadership

Abstract

The Department of Defense’s enduring mission is to provide combat-ready military forces needed to defend our nation, deter war, and protect the security of the United States (DoD, 2020). Effective military training and education are critical to our National Defense Strategy in that it provides a way to prepare our servicemembers with the ability to carry out the mission of the Department of Defense. Military training and education programs encompass almost every facet of adult education, from basic skills training through graduate-level higher education (Persyn & Polson, 2012). Adult teaching and learning in the military is a complex project that touches many lives and asks us to learn from the past as we design, experiment, and explore the evolving educational landscapes of the future (Zacharakis & VanDerWerff, 2012). The purpose of this study was to update the content and structure of the military instructor faculty development program at the Judge Advocate General’s School. The existing faculty development program was over ten years old and needed to be reviewed and updated because the content and structure were not serving the pedagogical needs of the faculty effectively. This research study used three phases to address three research questions as it updated an existing in-house military instructor faculty development program. Phase I served as the needs analysis phase to determine what education-related topics needed to be included in the new program. Phase II took the results of the previous phase and not only updated but implemented the new program, and Phase III determined if those updates were successful.