Developing critical thinking skills in military leaders using on-line collaborative simulations.

Dr. Noelle LaVoie, Dr. Clay Chun, Dr. Lisa Boyce
Pearson Knowledge Technologies, U.S. Army War College, U.S. Air Force Academy

Dr. Karen Lochbaum, Dr. Lynn Streeter
Pearson Knowledge Technologies

Dr. Joseph Psotka
U.S. Army Research Institute

Dr. Charles Krupnick
U.S. Army War College

Abstract

With the rapid pace of change, the military must investigate non-traditional means of developing the critical thinking skills that their leaders need to succeed in today's dynamic environment. Web-based collaborative learning environments have the capability to educate leaders using simulations of realistic military problems. We have developed a unique collaborative learning environment with a set of on-line tools that automatically support, moderate, critique, and accelerate on-line learning.

Knowledge Post is a collaborative learning environment developed by PKT. Knowledge Post is based on Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a technology that understands meaning in a similar way to humans. Knowledge Post is designed to encourage the development of critical analyses and problem solving, and includes tools for finding relevant reference material and discussion comments, assessing on-line work automatically, providing moderation by identifying discussions that are floundering, and increasing the quality of discussions by judging the applicability of an expert's comment and inserting it automatically into the discussion.

Cadets at the U.S. Air Force Academy developed their critical thinking skills through on-line scenario-based simulations in Knowledge Post. Using our LSA-based tools, we simulated the presence of senior Military Officers. For example, as the cadets discuss aspects of a terrorist scenario, comments from military experts are automatically interjected into the cadets' discussion, to help the cadets develop critical thinking skills typical of more senior and experienced Officers. By considering the expert comments, the cadets are able to develop better critical analyses of the situation, and practice their problem solving skills.

We have also collaborated with the U.S. Army War College, providing our automated assessment and moderation tools for their on-line simulation. During the simulation, students at the Army War College participate in the process of developing national security policy. Our LSA-based technology is able to assess the relevance of students' comments to the problem at hand. We detect when students are spending too much time planning and coordinating and not enough time discussing the content of the problem, and alert the instructors to possible problems. The immediacy of the feedback improves the quality of the simulation, and helps students get the most out of the educational experience.

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