Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/533940
T Training www.vanguardcanada.com JUNE/JULY 2015 37 "Nobody has done the abinitio training quite like this," he says. "It is easier to do task-based than skill-based. In abinitio training the building blocks are skill-based, and with skill-based programs you have to teach the general principles, and also the exceptions. On the electronic side, these Tutors have wires that are connected in a certain way, but students can't simply follow a formula be- cause the connectors are not the same as they would be on a modern aircraft. We have to teach the realities of modern aircraft in a way that suits the modern learner." In the coming years, the Canadian Armed Forces will begin re- cruiting from the first wave of "Generation Z" or "the Plural- ists," the first cohort to be characterized as digital natives. Raised on technology, they are considered remarkable multi-taskers, able to read, text and talk all at the same time. On the flip side, they are perceived to be less mechanically inclined than previous genera- tions – many will have never seen the inside of a workshop – and struggle with "focus" and the ability to "analyze more lengthy, complex information," according to one author. Though open minded, they will also seek instant feedback. As Ladan Nikravan wrote in an article for Chief Learning Officer magazine in 2014, "[t]his generation more than any other will suffer from the growing gap between the highly skilled and the unskilled. The technical skill gap is huge, but the nontechnical skill gap is more pervasive...[T]here will be a growing elite among the emerging workforce, those with the greatest technical skills training and the benefits of personal development opportunities. Retaining those among the growing elite will require increasing differentiation and reward." For Blanchette and others in the RCAF tasked with developing and attracting that future talent, that means a model that combines students' familiarity with e-learning and their affiliation for tech- nology with the rewards of gaming, all blended with the practical experience of hands-on mechanics. Fortunately, Blanchette is better suited than most to wrestle with this challenge. An army captain leading a section in an air force unit, he holds an undergraduate degree in adult education, a Masters in distance education, and is working on a Doctorate in Education with a specialty in instructional design. "I'm very much in my element here," he acknowledges. Knowledge transfer To help produce the online courseware, in 2013 the Department of National Defence signed a $4 million contract with Calian Tech- nologies. Calian has long been providing aircraft maintenance and repair training services to the School, so a professional relationship was well established. But new requirements under the ATTR have deepened that bond, creating a true partnership. Paul Hallett is Calian's on-site manager for its Training and Engineering Division. A former member of both the British and Canadian forces, with 16 years of operational experience, he leads a team of 43 instructors and 34 training support staff under a sup- port contract to CFSATE and a further 22 under ATTR, which also draws on resources from Bluedrop Performance Learning in Halifax. He says that while some observers have been concerned with the game-like nature of the courses – "this is meant to be serious learn- ing" – others have immediately recognized its value. And because it is tailored in many ways to the learning pace of the individual student, the air force can move more people through the program while still maintaining a high standard. "You get huge efficiencies," he says. "At the moment, if a stu- dent arrives for a 12-month course and it has already started, they might wait nearly 12 months to begin. While they sit around, they have to be housed and fed and, because they're not doing any- thing they get bored and possibly into trouble. Moreover, if they have transferred from another technical trade and might be able to complete that 12-month course in six, the air force has lost their work output for that year. "If you give them the ability to do that course as soon as they ar- rive, in six to 12 months they have the training they require, to the necessary standard, and they are out the door and being produc- tive. And for the person who isn't quite getting it, now he or she might fail after 12 months when all they really needed was another few weeks. He or she will be at the same standard as the person who only took 6 months, but if they are kicked out after 12 it is hugely inefficient because you have lost someone who was poten- tially a great technician – they just needed a little more time. With this blended approach, we can treat each student as an individual, not as a homogenous group." "Capturing the technical expertise of the instructor is important because a lot of the workforce is getting older and that level of expertise is rarely found." – Captain Luc Blanchette