Training Development and Analysis
Our education and training experts recognize the need to provide the best training for the lowest possible cost. Indeed, cost-effectiveness studies have long been part of our repertoire. We also understand that training budgets are often under-funded, leaving a gap between the training that people need and what can be afforded. Since the early 1990s, our education researchers, instructional designers, training analysts, and simulation developers have been helping customers use advanced learning technology to devise effective training systems while increasing student throughput and reducing training costs.
Solutions Tailored to Customer Needs
We help our customers find the right mix of live, virtual, and constructive training for diagnostics, operations, interviewing, intelligence, and leadership training. We help tailor the instruction to make the best use of a customer's available resources, including its equipment, facilities, and instructors. We understand the burden of life-cycle support for complex simulators and training environments, and we work to make that burden manageable. Using desktop and distributed simulations combined with hands-on trainers and real-world experiences, we can reduce the total life-cycle cost of training while increasing its effectiveness.
Gain–Practice–Demonstrate (GPD) Instructional Methodology
Our training analysis is focused on active learning for our customers' critical tasks and associated performance measures. We developed the GPD (gain, practice, demonstrate) methodology for task-based active learning, which we call 'situated' learning and assessment. We can reduce our customers' training costs per task by using the right mix of technologies at each stage of the GPD model.
We develop simulations that help users successfully apply knowledge and skills gained through training. Our simulations focus on active processing, an adult learning principle well established as an effective approach to training. We 'situate' the user by putting the user in different situations for training and assessment and then monitor user performance. Our systematic GPD methodology is represented by our training triangle below.
As shown by the figure, for all of our simulations we consider how long the user spends in different learning environments, what those environments might be, and what the user does in each learning environment.
Gain
In a classroom or over the Web, the user can gain knowledge and begin to gain skills through situated (active) learning using classroom-based or distributed simulations.
Practice
In simulations or using hands-on mockups (particularly for manual skills), the user continues to learn by practicing skills in increasingly complex situations. The user's performance is assessed during each situation. When the user performs well, more complex situations—representing real-world complexity—are presented. When the user makes mistakes, less complex situations along with instructional support provide just the right level of assistance.
Demonstrate
Once the user has successfully passed all the practice environments, he or she needs to demonstrate skills competence in carefully defined situations. These situated assessments are presented in high-fidelity simulated environments or may even use a live environment (real world places, tools, and people).
Finding the Right Approach
Our training approach is based on working closely with customer teams representing the different stakeholders in training, including subject matter experts, instructors, equipment manufacturers, program managers, and life-cycle support personnel. We find the right blend of distance learning and distributed simulations, along with hands-on and live experiences, to make our customers' training more productive and cost-effective, allowing them to focus on the critical content and not the technology.
Contact us for more information
- Robert C. Hubal