Excellent presentations on a variety of logistics topics at this week’s National Defense Industrial Association (NDIA) National Logistics Conference, including a good deal of dialog related to logistics workforce professional development. Much of the discussion related to what do students need to know (competencies), and when and how should it be provided (training, education, learning tools, faculty, delivery methods, etc). Conference speakers from a variety of DoD, private sector academia, and industry shared their thoughts and perspectives.

One speaker in particular discussed the value of using cases and simulations as part of the learning mix, particularly in the classroom environment. Those of you who have taken DAU Life Cycle Logistics classroom courses know that DAU recognizes the value and benefits of this approach, and has leveraged this approach in our 200 and 300 level life cycle logistics classroom courses. Benefits to the student are myriad. By mixing faculty teaching, mentoring, coaching, and facilitation with cases requiring student teams to evaluate data, identify a variety of solutions, and to present their results while under a time constraint has proven to be an extremely effective learning approach. By putting students in an environment with a degree of uncertainty where they must understand processes, evaluate and analyze data, identify root cause problems, and present their results publicly to their peers and faculty, student learning is enhanced.

This approach has proven time and again to be highly effective in honing vital analytical and communication skills, facilitating creative “out of the box” solutions to substantive yet ill-defined problems, while at the same time, stretching student thinking in an interesting, engaging, and ultimately successful learning environment. This faculty-facilitated. case-based classroom learning environment is supplemented by a panoply of web-based distance learning courses, continuous learning modules, communities of practice, articles, videos, delivered in a variety of methods including the internet, conferences, symposia, and even iTunes University.

Case-based learning, as we apply it in our upper level logistics courses, affords students opportunities to build and lead a team not of their own choosing, develop consensus while under time pressure, and potentially fail in an otherwise “safe” environment where lives, combat capability, military readiness, and taxpayer dollars are not at risk. Student and organizational commitment to training is an important investment, and our commitment to you is to do everything we can do to provide the necessary return on that investment – a better qualified, well trained, more capable member of the defense acquisition workforce. We know that the practitioner training our students receive is a vital component to delivering the outcomes our stakeholders and customers expect of each one of us.

Agree or disagree? If you agree, how are we doing? What can we do better?