New External AeroEd Program

[cnitas]

If the program is about AE and not CP, then why any uniforms other than a t-shirt (like tiger cubs) and why saluting?

I think I see BDUs in the school bus pic as well.  Are there 5-10 yo's wearing BDUs?

Do we have BDU clad members 'teaching' 5yr olds how to salute? And what does that have to do with AE?

Either way, I think it is questionable. 
Being 'popular' is not the same thing as being 'right'. 

[PA Guy]

I'm still waiting for someone to point me to an evaluation of this program. I would like to see if there are actually measurable outcomes from this $700,000 of our money.

I don't know but there may very well be an evaluation report.  Where have you tried to find it?  You might try NHQ/AE, PAWG Administrator or the school(s) involved.  Let us know what you find it would be interesting.

[RiverAux]

The Executive Director's column in the Nov-Dec Volunteer says that this program will be tested by 300 teachers and 7,000 students.  Thats right -- 7,000.  If that is what actually happens, I can't help but think this will eventually benefit the actual cadet program as well as being a good AE project in its own right. 

[dogboy]

The Executive Director's column in the Nov-Dec Volunteer says that this program will be tested by 300 teachers and 7,000 students. 

In my opinion, this shows that those running this program (who are they anyway?) truly don't know what they are doing. It's impossible to train 300 teachers in a year to present similar material in a similar way.

If the dissimilar material is presented in various ways, then the "test" is no test at all. What makes a test valid is that the variables are constant.

Anyone with knowledge of how to test educational programs could have explained that it's not the size of the experiment that matters but the validity of it. Size doesn't make validity, in fact, as here, it works against it.

[RiverAux]

According to the Nov AE program newsletter they're doing it in 20 schools nationwide.  We're only talking about an average of 15 teachers per school based on their target of 300 teachers nationwide.  This is extremely do-able especially since it will be spread across the country any one wing won't have to do more than 1 or 2 workshops.  Not a problem at all.

[dogboy]

According to the Nov AE program newsletter they're doing it in 20 schools nationwide.  We're only talking about an average of 15 teachers per school based on their target of 300 teachers nationwide.  This is extremely do-able especially since it will be spread across the country any one wing won't have to do more than 1 or 2 workshops.  Not a problem at all.

Perhaps you don't understand how to do educational research. The 200 teachers, in 20 different locations, have to be taught not only the substantive material, but how to present it in a similar manner.

Then they have to be monitored to ensure that they are presenting it similarly.

The students in both the experimental and control groups of students that will  not been exposed have to be pre-tested to ensure they are equivalent. (There are control groups aren't there?) Post-exposure, both groups of students have to be tested to measure the outcomes for the students.

Finally, follow-up testing will be required at least once sometime in the future to determine whether any changes were lasting.

That's 300 teachers trained, then monitored. Fourteen thousand pre-tests, Fourteen thousand post-tests, and fourteen thousand follow-up tests.

This is the minimum that must be done. For a decent study, the teachers should be interviewed post-experiment and the conduct, knowledge, and beliefs of the students in both the experimental and control groups should be analyzed several times subsequently, over a period of years.

It's very, very common for educational programs to have seemly dramatic effects, which in, fact, disappear over time.

I've done dozens and dozens of educational programs tests. Programs which appear to have obvious value very often turn out to do nothing constructive and are sometimes harmful. Classic examples are: "Scared-Straight Prison Programs", "Midnight Basketball", and most notoriously, the original DARE program.

When a "test" is badly organized, one or both of two things are occurring: the program "testers" simply don't know what they are doing. Or the program originators are running the the test and they are rigging it so that it shows positive results.

I would like to know who exactly is supporting and running this program? Do they have training and experience in curriculum development and evaluation? Where is the money coming from?

[RiverAux]

I have quite a bit of training and experience in research techniques and I wouldn't disagree with your comments in general.  However, you're operating under the assumption that they intend to do a detailed analysis of the program.  To my knowledge nothing along these lines has ever been done for any of our programs.
For example, I've not been able to find anything validating our DDR program. 

I suspect that the evaluation will be much more informal.

Perhaps you should apply for the national level advisor position for this program.  I would like to see more rigorous evaluation of our programs and you may be the right person to do it.   

[Cadet Tillett]

I am jumping in here late in the game but have been following the junior cadet program for some time.  I work with a regular composite squadron and a cadet squadorn in a junior high school.

I do not believe that making young children "cadets" is a good thing.  A 12 year old has a tough enought problems with the materials and 'leadership' development.  Most of the younger cadet program is adult driven which makes it little different than cub scouts.  

Our goal is to develop leaders with a little aerospace education thrown in there...not the other way around.

I agree.  Of all the things they could have called their new program they had to choose Junior Cadet.  The use of the word "cadet" has caused nothing but confusion and angst in the CP community.

I don't care what the hell they call the program, it is my humble (as always) opinion that bringing younger kids into a program that already has discipline/bearing problems among the younger cadets will have a bad impact on the program.  This program is leadership training, not babysitting.

[RiverAux]

Interestingly, the Young Marines program starts at age 8. 

[BillB]

True the Young Marine program starts younger, but they don't have a CPPT program to worry about such as yelling at Marine cadets.

[RiverAux]

Actually they do have rules against that sort of thing.  I'm assuming you weren't advocating yelling at 8-year olds as a great motivational strategy.