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The Army Interview
Patrick George
EDU625
Dr. John Jamison
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Summary
The lesson outline for the lesson “The Army Interview” is described below. It is designed
for Soldier students to apply their knowledge about Army to a real-life example in which they
will use their own experiences within the military to give a potential applicant a verbal visual
picture of life in the Army. It is also a prequalification of the applicant to see if they are qualified
for military service. This class starts out as a traditional PowerPoint slide show for the first three
or four slides, and then the instructor shuts off the PowerPoint presentation and goes into a
facilitator mode with the students continuing on with a discovery type of learning.
Introduction
This lesson is intended for recruiters attending the Army recruiter course at Fort Jackson,
SC in the Recruiting and Retention School (RRS). The lesson will be taught at the RRS in
weeks 4-6 within a small group environment of 12 students. This lesson will take place over a 4
hour period with 10 minute breaks on or around the 50 minute mark, which will be 3 hours and
20 minutes long. In order to adequately complete this lesson, students must have previously
been taught seven separate enabling learning objectives (ELO). The ELO’s need to complete this
terminal learning objective (TLO) are as follows; Prepare for the interview, Open the session,
Preform prequalification, Identify facts and eliminate assumptions (this is the part where
technology of the iPad or iPhone app TC 3-22.20 will come into play in assisting the Soldier
student to eliminate assumptions of physical fitness to the applicant), Engender a commitment,
Close the session, and throughout the session display interpersonal skills and maintain the flow
of the interview.
In 1972, the Army adopted the Bloom’s taxonomy to design and develop training for
Soldiers. During this the Training and doctrine command (TRADOC) create or developed
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several field manuals, pamphlets and regulations that incorporated bloom’s taxonomy. These
manuals would be the key factor in assisting training developers in developing training material
for Soldiers across the globe, from Germany, Hawaii to and throughout the USA. The main
regulations series that developers use would be TRADOC Pamphlet 350-70 Army Learning
Policy and System(CHARLES E. HARRIS III, G-6, & For: JOHN E. STERLING, 2011)
Learning Objectives
There are several enabling learning objectives that Soldier students will need to meet in
order to complete this class. Objectives are written in the ABCD format as presented by (Hodell,
2011). ABCD objectives identify the Audience to meet the objective given in six of the seven
ELO’s, the Behavior to be met, the Conditions under which the behavior is to be met which is the
seventh ELO, and the Degree by which the objective is to be met is the overall rating for the
Army interview(Hodell, 2011). Although the Army interview is a non-linear process it should be
presented in a logical order or flow to make sense. The overall learning objective is given a
laptop with an applicant record, name of the applicant and a specific date to conduct an Army
interview complete the Army interview using all the ELO’s previous taught in accordance with
(IAW) Army Regulation 601-210, United States Army Recruiting Command (USAREC) Manual
3-01 this is graded via a rubric covering the seven ELO’s. First ELO is prepare for the interview,
student will be evaluated based on a 1-4 point system 4 being proficient, 3 being successful, 2
needs practice, and 1 unsuccessful. The points system total 28 possible points with 21 or more
needed to receive a pass on this pass or fail task. Soldiers must receive higher than 11 to receive
a second chance at conducting the Army interview. Anything below 11 will consider the student
as either a drop from the course or recycle to the following class.
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Lesson Plan
The lesson plan, is included below, in accordance with (IAW) Army doctrine with the
Army learning model 2015 (ALM 2015) as a guide. Only the first four slides are presented to the
class, this is to ensure that the students understand the action, conditions, and standards that must
be met. The seven ELO’s have been taught previous to this class, and now it is time to see if the
students can tie them altogether to complete the Army Interview. See the “Conduct the Army
Interview LP” for the entire lesson plan.
Learning Activities
There are seven enabling learning objectives (see rubric) that the Soldier students
previously learned prior to conducting the Army interview. Now the student must put all seven in
a logical order to complete the Army interview. Interpersonal skills are a must for an Army
recruiter if they stutter, or have a speech impediment then this is where it usually comes out, only
the strong minded Soldiers can overcome this portion of the interview and makes it flow.
Listening skills are the next hardest especially for male recruiters they try hard to pay attention
but end up just trying to shove information down the applicants throat, but appear to get back on
track once they find common ground with the applicant, whereas female recruiters tend to listen
but they seem to get side bared and showing emotion and empathy but seem to get right back on
track as soon as they start asking pre-qualification questions. By understanding the common
errors this teaches the students to know themselves through years of observations that are
presented by the Recruiting and Retention school (RRS). Although the Army interview is a nonlinear process it should be presented in a logical order or flow to make sense. The overall
learning objective is given a laptop with an applicant record, name of the applicant and a specific
date to conduct an Army interview complete the Army interview using all the ELO’s previous
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taught in accordance with (IAW) Army Regulation 601-210, United States Army Recruiting
Command (USAREC) Manual 3-01 this is graded via a rubric covering the seven ELO’s. First
ELO is prepare for the interview, student will be evaluated based on a 1-4 point system 4 being
proficient, 3 being successful, 2 needs practice, and 1 unsuccessful. The points system total 28
possible points with 21 or more needed to receive a pass on this pass or fail task. Soldiers must
receive higher than 11 to receive a second chance at conducting the Army interview. Anything
below 11 will consider the student as either a drop from the course or recycle to the following
class. I remember talking with a first sergeant at the RRS and he said that “you guys don’t have
to spend money to determine personality traits of good recruiters, if they drink or smoke then
they socialize; if they socialize then they’re good bottom line”. United States Army Recruiting
Command would or was not going to entertain this comment but through three years of
following recruiters after they left the RRS 92% of the drinkers and smokers were successful
recruiters personally I think that the first sergeant was good with his assessment(Smith, 1998). I
have tried to place these learning activities into a chart that matched up with Bloom’s digital
taxonomy (see below)(Churches, 2009).
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Assessment
This lesson style uses both formative and summative assessment that will be completed
during and after this lesson. Formative assessment occurs during a lesson and is designed to
provide “The environment itself is designed to be a recall trigger, as they move about into
different areas, they should encounter situations which are familiar to the from their learning” (
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Buggey, T. 2007). Summative assessment goes more toward goals or hit point for the Soldier
students. This lesson has built in distractions which will cause the student to make a choice and
in the end of the lesson the facilitator will bring back these choices some as to have a
teaching/learning effect on all the students. Most of the assessments that go along with this
lesson are individual assessments. No group assessment will be completed, however there are
peer assessments incorporated into the lesson(s).
The formative, or ongoing, assessment that will be used in this lesson will be by the
facilitator/coach to maintain the flow of the interview or lesson. The observer controlers will be
walking around during the activities, observing the training to find additional ways to support
ongoing learning for the students. If a particular student or group of students is struggling with a
specific portion of the lesson, the facilitator will provide the necessary adjustments through hints
or suggestions but just enough to get the students thought process back on track and they will
have self-learning or discovery learning along the way.
The summative, or final, assessment for this unit will be conducting the Army interview
with a role playing student, this has a twofold benefit for the student one they get to understand
how the applicant feels when they first enter the Army, most of us have forgotten the feeling
when we first met our recruiter, the second part of the benefit is to the recruiter to have an
applicant that is acting out the scenario give to them which makes the interview more realistic.
The Army interview will be graded based upon a provided rubric (see attachment), that will
assess the Soldiers ability to conduct an Army interview and their interpersonal skills. The end
of course survey has the students answering several multiple choice questions that will be
designed to see what the students know about the Army interview this is more of a formal
assessment overall and will be used to make lesson changes and facilitator adjustments if
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necessary.
References
CHARLES E. HARRIS III, C., G-6, G-6, S. o., & For: JOHN E. STERLING, J., Lieutenant
General, U.S. Army, Deputy Commanding General/Chief of Staff. (2011). TR 350-70
Training: ARMY LEARNING POLICY AND SYSTEMS. In T. a. D. C. (TRADOC)
(Ed.), Army Publication (6 Dec 2011 ed., Vol. NA, pp. 129). Fort Eustis, Virginia 236045700: Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
Churches, A. (2009). Bloom's Digital Taxonomy: Education Office of Canberra and Goulburn,.
Hodell, C. (2011). ISD From the Ground Up: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional Design
(3rd ed.): The American Society for Training Development
Smith, P. E. (1998, 7 Jul 98). [interpersonal skills]. na.
Buggey, T. (2007, Summer). Storyboard for Ivan's morning routine. Diagram. Journal of Positive
Behavior Interventions, 9(3), 151. Retrieved December 14, 2007, from Academic Search Premier
database.