GREENVILLE, Ky. – Soldiers with the 238th Regiment hosted senior instructors from the Djiboutian Armed Forces (FAD) at the Wendell H. Ford Regional Training Center, Aug. 15-17, as part of Kentucky's partnership with the African nation.
The intent of this meeting was to share best practices regarding building curriculum, instruction, and coordinating a standardized training system. Maj. Jamie Carta, State Partnership Program coordinator, said that the discussion today was an overview of how the U.S. Armed Forces develop materials for curriculum, as well as how we develop and choose instructors.
"They want to standardize their instructor training so that they have a good baseline of knowledge," said 1st Sgt. Anthony Kennedy, Quality Assurance NCO for the 238th,who was leading the facilitation. "We have their leadership here, and the goal is for them to take the instruction back and begin implementing it into how they structure their training. We hope to have a follow-up event soon where we go to Djibouti to train instructors, and see the progress that have been able to make."
Currently, the FAD does things according to the French way, which tends to be particularly structured and by the book. With this meeting, Kentucky National Guard instructors showed them how to add flexibility to their training implementation in order for them to be able to tailor programs and instructors to fit their specific needs."
"The discussion focused on the ADDIE process to show them how to develop lesson plans. Once they get home and identify things that they want to train on, they need to be able to write curriculum to standardize their training," said Kennedy. "The goal is for them to be able to identify tasks that they wish to instruct their forces on, and for them to be able to write their own curriculum that is standardized across the board for their services."
The ADDIE model is a framework that lists generic processes that designers and developers use in the decision-making process to build effective training and performance support tools. It encompasses 5 phases: analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation.
"We came to learn how to catch a fish, not to get the fish already cooked and ready to eat," said Lt. Col. Mahammad Moumin Abdi, deputy commander of L'Academie Militaire Interarmée d'Arta (The Academy of Joint Military Arts). "We came from different sites and services, but we are trying to come together. We are a small country and a small army, but we do not communicate as well as we could. Working with the Kentucky National Guard is giving us a unique opportunity to exchange experiences and to discuss and analyze what we are doing so that we can identify common goals and begin working together collectively."
The Djiboutian senior instructors were receptive and eager to take home what they have learns, and to continue working with the Kentucky National Guard. The State Partnership Program between Djibouti and the Kentucky National Guard is a joint Department of Defense security cooperation program managed by the National Guard Bureau designed to reinforce U.S. ties in the region and assist the Djiboutian Armed Forces to become a more professional force that can better partner with U.S. and allied armed forces through standardized military-to-military engagements with the Kentucky National Guard.