Running head: INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN AND PRESENTATION

Instructional Plan and Presentation

Joshua Conner
CUR516
February 2, 2015
Professor Kathryn Wyatt

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN AND PRESENTATION

Mission Command Systems Integration

Phase I
Course description and overview
In this course, learners focus on the technical planning requirements for integrating
mission command systems across units that have been fielded with different generations of
equipment. Learners will identify and analyze software baseline requirements, network
architecture requirements, and database compatibility requirements required to link differing
units in a tactical environment. In addition, learners will design a Brigade Combat Team(BCT)sized network using organic switches and transport and implement network poling and reporting
requirements while maintaining proper cybersecurity standards.

Target Audience/Prerequisites
The target audience for this course are Army Signal officers in the grades of Captain or
Major, and warrant officers in the grades of Chief Warrant Officer 2 or Chief Warrant Officer 3.
This course is designed at the collegiate level.

Prerequisites for this course include the Signal Captains Career Course for Signal Officers, or
the Signal Warrant Officers Advanced Course for warrant Officers.

Delivery Method and Course information

This class will be delivered using a combination of a five week online distance-learning
phase consisting of readings, forum discussions, and written assignments, followed by a five day
in-person resident phase consisting of a presentation and a simulation capstone requirement.

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN AND PRESENTATION

Learning Goals
By the end of the course:
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Students will be able to plan a BCT network.

Students will understand the differences between the various generations of mission

command systems in use by the Army today.

Students will be able to integrate mission command systems from one brigade with
those of another brigade that has a different generation of equipment.
Phase II
Mission Command Systems Integration

Learning Goals and Learning Objectives

-

Goal 1: Students will understand the differences between the various generations of
mission command systems in use by the Army today.
o Objective 1: In a web-based forum, students will articulate an understanding
of the mission command systems used in a BCT operations center for all six
warfighting functions.
o Objective 2: In a web-based forum, students will describe the differences
between the publish and subscribe service (PASS) used in software block 2
servers and the data distribution service (DDS) used in software block 11/12

servers with no assistance.

Goal 2: Students will be able to plan a Brigade Combat Team network.
o Objective 1: Given a BCT deployment scenario in a home or office
environment, students will accurately describe each technical document
required to plan a BCT Network.
o Objective 2: Given a BCT deployment scenario and a standard BCT list of
networking systems in a classroom environment, students will develop a

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN AND PRESENTATION

network diagram that includes redundant links for the BCT headquarters to
other identified key headquarters.
o Objective 3: Given an operations order in a simulated environment, students
will brief a plan to reconfigure the network to support a move of the BCT
tactical operations center that requires no more than a 60 minute network
-

outage.
Goal 3: Students will be able to integrate mission command systems from one brigade
with those of another brigade that has a different generation of equipment.
o Objective 1: Given a BCT deployment order in a simulated environment,
students will develop a plan that correctly integrates the mission command
systems from a BCT with software block 2 systems and a BCT with software
block 11/12 systems using the proper database configurations within 8 hours.
o Objective 2: Given an established BCT network architecture with full mission
command services in a simulated environment, students will troubleshoot
problems between two brigade networks on different software blocks in order
to restore a common operating picture between the two units within two
hours.

Objective Explanation
The objectives for this course use collaborative learning and encourage critical thinking
skills. In order to effectively integrate mission command systems into a seamless common
operating picture across two organizations with unlike equipment, it is important to emphasize
the collaborative planning requirements between the Signal Officer and the Warrant Officer.
This course will build a collective knowledge base that requires both audiences understand not
only their role but the others role as well to integrate mission command systems across

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organizations. All students must be able to apply critical thinking in order to understand how
network architecture, signal flow, database processing and security protocols all interact and
affect mission command traffic during the troubleshooting process.

Instructional Strategies
The online phase of this course will leverage readings, case studies, and job aids. The
readings will focus on the technical requirements to replicate PASS traffic across a DDS domain
and vice versa, as well as the planning requirements for building and jumping a BCT level
network. The case studies will leverage required readings of after action reviews from other
BCT and Divisional HQs from recent OEF deployments that discuss how units worked through
and overcame various technical communications issues and compatibility issues between
different generations of communications systems. Students will receive job aids (graphic
training aids) as part of the reading that detail the different types of systems in the Army
inventory, the different portals for the technical documentation required to build a BCT network
architecture, and trouble-shooting flow charts for both PASS and DDS services.

The resident phase will leverage collaboration and critical incident during a simulation. Officers
will be paired with Warrant Officers as they execute a plan they developed during the online
phase to build a BCT network. The students must provide the right technical configurations and
planning data in order to make the simulation work correctly. Once all systems are operating
properly, the facilitators will sabotage the network a minimum of three times, and the teams of
students will be forced to identify the problems and apply corrective action to bring all network
services back online.

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Instructional Technologies
The online phase of this course will leverage Blackboard and Adobe Connect to facilitate
instruction. Students will use Blackboard as the general forum for class discussions and to
download training aids and reading materials. Each group of students will have access to a room
hosted on Adobe Connect to facilitate collaboration on the development of a network plan that
will be implemented during the residence phase.

The resident phase of this course will require a three computer labs with 20 computers
each, with various networking requirements outline below to connect the labs and server stacks.
Each computer lab will also contain 2 projectors and a smart board. All systems and services
will reside on closed networks without public internet access.

Phase III
This course will be a five week online course followed by a five-day residence course. The first
online modules will be ready for implementation by September 7, 2015, with the live simulation
beginning on October 19, 2015.

Personnel Requirements
One instructor will facilitate the online portion for each class, with class sizes ranging
from a minimum of six students to a maximum of 12. The students participating in the online
portion of this course will also require access to the technical support department already in
place at Ft Leavenworth, KS, who will also run the Adobe Connect server.

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN AND PRESENTATION

The simulation will require four facilitators and help desk support from the technical
support department, as well as a supply and logistics specialist to ensure all lab equipment and
servers are functioning properly and repaired expeditiously as required.

Resources
This class will require a significant investment in IT. This class will require four mission
command server stacks (one for each classroom), two each from software block 2 and software
block 11/12, as well as four Joint Network Node (JNN) secure modules to connect the three
simulated classrooms. The two software block 2 system sets can be resourced at no cost by
recycling equipment from the next two units that are scheduled to be upgraded to the latest
generation of equipment this summer. Each classroom will represent a different unit
programmed with different generations of equipment and corresponding server stack. The
additional server stack and JNN module will be programmed with the Combined Arms Centers
Caspian Sea scenario and be used to stream simulated data throughout the other three labs.
Three Brigades and one Division headquarters worth of data products need to be produced,
including IP networking cut sheets, encryption keys, and operational overlays. A mission event
sequence list also needs to be developed for the facilitators to inject vignettes into the simulation
to judge whether the learners can populate and share a common operating picture of the
scenarios across systems and boundaries.

Implementation
This course will require a significant advertising plan to get it off the ground. Therefore,

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I propose four lines of effort to communicate the plan, build interest and commitment, and select
participants.

Line of effort 1: Senior leader endorsement. The First Army commander, Forces
Command Commander, and the Commanders of both Combat Training Centers all have Mission
Command Systems integration listed as one of the biggest training deficiencies in todays force.
I recommend we provide a demonstration for those leaders at the next LANDWARNET
conference where they will all be in attendance in the spring. Then, we will provide them with a
single briefing slide for those commanders to use in their travel slide decks to use in other senior
leader engagements. Ask those key leaders to send an email to other subordinate leaders
throughout their commands urging subordinate leaders to identify appropriate personnel to send
to the course. The goal of this line of effort is to inform and influence those who our target
audience works for.

Line of effort 2: Duty enroute. We will target Human Resources Command to order
individuals who are changing duty stations in order to serve on a BCT S6 staff to attend our
course prior to reporting to their new duty station. If we can get students before they report to
their units, it will be easier for students to attend without having their job requirements at their
duty station distracting them. The goal of this line of effort is to alleviate the burden on units of
sending people to school on their time by making it an in-transit requirement before our target
audience reports to a new duty station. This will help part of our target audience.

Line of effort 3: Conference attendance. The Armed Forces Communications Electronics

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Association (AFCEA) annual conference, Signal Corps Regimental Association annual

conference, the DOD TAC-C4 conference, and the LANDWARNET conference all represent
opportunities to target the right senior leaders who can rally support for this course. We will
contact the organizers of all of those conferences to coordinate for 15-30 minutes on the agenda
to advertise the course. The goal of this line of effort is to spread awareness with both the target
audience and their senior leaders of the value of sending them to this course.

Line of effort 4: Professional publications. The Communicator magazine, AFCEA

quarterly, and The Signal represent the most popular professional journals dedicated to IT
support in the military. We will write a short article describing and selling the course for those
publications, which will reach most of the Armys Signal Officers (Captains and Majors) and
Warrant Officers (Warrant Officer 2s and Warrant Officers 3s), our target audience. This goal of
this line of effort is also to spread awareness to both the target audience and senior leaders as
well.
Formative Assessment Methodology
As we are designing a course that is designed as a stand-alone offering as opposed to part
of a larger curriculum, we will use Morrison, Ross, and Kemps model for formative assessments
to evaluate this course during the instructional design phase and the pilot/testing phase. Their
approach contains eight steps over three phases.

The first phase, planning, analyzes the purpose, audience, issues, resources, and evidence.
We will validate staff our instructional plan with the Mission Command Training Program
(MCTP) staff at the Combined Arms Center, as well as the Signal mentor/trainers from the

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Combat Training Centers (CTC) for subject matter expert review.

Phase 2 is gathering data and conducting analysis, we will coordinate with the course
managers at Fort Gordon for the Signal Captains Career Course and Warrant Officer Advanced
Course to conduct exit surveys and collect initial data on student confidence in performing the
tasks we are targeting, as well as conduct telephonic interviews with the lead Signal Officers in
our 18 division formations about their confidence in their subordinates ability to conduct these
tasks.

Phase 3 is reporting our results in a manner that our instructional designers can use to
develop and refine the training program. The first phase will commence immediately, and will
aim to plan how to assess the course while also evaluating whether our purpose and audience are
targeted correctly to address the problem. Phase 2 will as soon as the surveys are developed and
staffed with Fort Gordon. Phase 3 will begin within 30 days of beginning phase 2.

Phase IV

Evaluation
We will evaluate the effectiveness of this course by tracking our students performance at
Warfighter exercises and during culminating training events at the CTCs. We will evaluate based
three data points at these events, which will be compared to historical data already on hand from
the last five years. Those three points are: how long it takes the students unit to establish all of
their mission command systems into operation from the beginning of the exercise, how long into

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the exercise does it take the units to integrate feeds from other units with unlike equipment, and
how long does it take the unit to reestablish all services after jumping the BCT headquarters. We
should see an overall average of a 50% reduction in the time it takes for those tasks to be
accomplished in both the Warfighter Exercise environment, and in a CTC environment by units
that are staffed with our graduates. We should have sufficient data points to make a quality
evaluation within 12 months of graduating our first class.

Instrumentation
We need to develop quality criteria for exercise observers to clearly identify at what point
in time a BCT S6 team has successfully performed their role in establishing and integrating
mission command system feeds. We also need to create assessment criteria to capture data points
relating to challenges that teams face performing these tasks that will feed after action reviews
for each Warfighter exercise and CTC rotation. We will also need to develop two studenttargeted surveys. The first survey will be a traditional course assessment that students will
complete on the last day of the training. The second survey will be a follow up on students
opinions on whether the course helped them in the 12 to 18 months following the training.

Implementation
The feedback collected from the after action reviews of these events will drive future
changes to improve the design of the course as we continue to pursue our goal of a 50%
reduction in time required for Signal teams to establish integrated mission command systems
feeds. We will use the data, combined with student exit surveys, to evaluate trends to determine
if there are steps or processes that are not adequately addressed in the course, or to identify

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portions of the instruction that are not presented clearly enough. We will also conduct follow up
surveys 12 to 18 months after a student completed the training to assess how students feel about
the effectiveness of the courses ability to enable them to better implement a mission command
system architecture. These surveys can also help determine if there are other factors that may be
influencing the times observed for units to employ and integrate their mission command systems
that could otherwise color our evaluation of the effectiveness of the training program.