CDCs are a similar, but strangely different, situation. There is a staff of CDC writers for the entire 3C group (one for each of the AFSCs, of course). As is fairly obvious with the squadron once you've been there for a while, it's a very large unit with a strange composition - lots and lots of students, a lot of instructors, and bare bones support staff.
Instructors are in class pretty much 8 hours per day, and they're going to be undermanned as a rule due to a deficiency in the manning computation formula. As such, they as the large majority of usable assets carry most of the additional duties, but they cannot do the heavily time-intensive tasks. The orderly room isn't going to pick up those tasks since they already have more work to do than most orderly rooms (due to the volume of students they have to process as well), and the civilians aren't going to touch anything like that without threat of bodily harm (which would be actionable under the union). That leaves the few military support personnel, which in a training squadron is pretty much comprised of the CDC writers since they don't have a constant workload in most cases.
I'm not excusing the fact that the CDCs are severely lacking, but the normal day-to-day activities of the CDC writers focuses around additional taskings, and when changes come from AFIADL (formerly ECI, which is at Gunter Annex in Alabama...another level of beaurocracy? =p) it's a distrubance to them rather than their job. They already have too many short suspenses to deal with and then more tedium is added to the pile.
In my opinion (let me emphasize that it is my opinion, not a statement of fact), that is why not enough attention is paid to updating the CDCs. In theory, regulation is supposed to mandate that CDCs will be rewritten and released within 180 days of a new CFETP. That's pretty tough when the job has gone unfilled in at least one career field for three years. It's not an enviable position.
Again, I would agree that the training can and should be greatly improved. I'm not saying that all that goes on in training is beautiful and smells nice on a sunny day. I'm merely trying to illustrate that there are some fairly severe mitigating factors involved that are contributing to the stink...
I've been one of the instructors that teach the Air Force curriculum. I'll be the first to admit that the training is fairly lacking in many areas. I don't know that much of the frustration being expressed in this thread is directed at the appropriate target, or even that some of it is justified given the circumstances. There have been a number of misrepresentations throughout the thread.
On your post in particular (or this one, rather, since you've made several), the instructors do receive fairly extensive training. There is at the basic level in the Air Force Basic Instructor Course (BIC...like everything else in the military, it has an acronym). Every Air Force instructor must successfully complete that course, the Instructional Systems Development course (ISD, which is used at many universities as well), and the Objective and Test writing course. BIC must be completed before teaching at all since it covers basic teaching teachniques, principles of learning, counseling, and lesson plan creation. Until completing the teaching practicum (about 6 months after completing BIC), an instructor must have a formal evaluation of their teaching skills every 30 days. After the practicum is completed there are still periodic reviews as well as a manditory evaluation every 3 or 6 months depending on your experience level.
There are many factors that go into the tests themselves, but something that seems to be being forgotten is that their being written by humans, and generally under poor conditions. They are not necessarily written by technical experts, but rather the person who is serving as the Subject Matter Expert in that particular block of instruction. Note that I did not say that they *were* subject matter experts in that area, merely that they were filling that position. They may not even be the most technically proficient person in the course with that material.
The tests, the study materials, the textbooks, and the appraisals are all written by the same person. In almost all of the apprentice and craftsman courses that person is going to be one of the instructors in the course. The CDCs are written by someone else - a senior NCO that (in the case of the comm career fields) works in the building, but in a different section.
Also, bear in mind that those people are really very frustrated by the process as well. Why? They don't really get to decide what they teach. That comes from the career field managers. I'll assume you've seen your training records. There is a document in there called a CFETP (Career Field Enlisted Training Plan I think) that outlines all of the tasks that are standard in your career field. Those are the result of a meeting between the career field functionals that meet about every two years to discuss the state of the AFSC. They decide, based on feedback given in career field surveys distributed and submitted by the personnel in the field (YOU!) on what tasks are performed, how often, and to what level. The functionals hammer out what they want to be taught in the courses and at what level and generate the CFETP. Then, for the most part, they step out of the picture.
It is then up to the schoolhouse, if there are major changes, to modify or revise the course to fit the requirements set forth in that document. Nothing more than what is requested can be mandated in the course, all topics must be covered, and only to the level set forth in the CFETP. There's a code table for what levels correspond to what symbols on the listing.
Then the ugly mire starts. Keep in mind, at this point the schoolhouse is already behind the technolgy curve. IT is moving, the requirements set forth for the training is not.
The instructor or CDC Writer that is responsible for the material begins to make the changes. How many CFETP line numbers are going to be taught in the block? How many hours is it going to take to present that material? How is the material going to be presented? Will there be a wartime modification to the material? None
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Instructors are in class pretty much 8 hours per day, and they're going to be undermanned as a rule due to a deficiency in the manning computation formula. As such, they as the large majority of usable assets carry most of the additional duties, but they cannot do the heavily time-intensive tasks. The orderly room isn't going to pick up those tasks since they already have more work to do than most orderly rooms (due to the volume of students they have to process as well), and the civilians aren't going to touch anything like that without threat of bodily harm (which would be actionable under the union). That leaves the few military support personnel, which in a training squadron is pretty much comprised of the CDC writers since they don't have a constant workload in most cases.
I'm not excusing the fact that the CDCs are severely lacking, but the normal day-to-day activities of the CDC writers focuses around additional taskings, and when changes come from AFIADL (formerly ECI, which is at Gunter Annex in Alabama...another level of beaurocracy? =p) it's a distrubance to them rather than their job. They already have too many short suspenses to deal with and then more tedium is added to the pile.
In my opinion (let me emphasize that it is my opinion, not a statement of fact), that is why not enough attention is paid to updating the CDCs. In theory, regulation is supposed to mandate that CDCs will be rewritten and released within 180 days of a new CFETP. That's pretty tough when the job has gone unfilled in at least one career field for three years. It's not an enviable position.
Again, I would agree that the training can and should be greatly improved. I'm not saying that all that goes on in training is beautiful and smells nice on a sunny day. I'm merely trying to illustrate that there are some fairly severe mitigating factors involved that are contributing to the stink...
On your post in particular (or this one, rather, since you've made several), the instructors do receive fairly extensive training. There is at the basic level in the Air Force Basic Instructor Course (BIC...like everything else in the military, it has an acronym). Every Air Force instructor must successfully complete that course, the Instructional Systems Development course (ISD, which is used at many universities as well), and the Objective and Test writing course. BIC must be completed before teaching at all since it covers basic teaching teachniques, principles of learning, counseling, and lesson plan creation. Until completing the teaching practicum (about 6 months after completing BIC), an instructor must have a formal evaluation of their teaching skills every 30 days. After the practicum is completed there are still periodic reviews as well as a manditory evaluation every 3 or 6 months depending on your experience level.
There are many factors that go into the tests themselves, but something that seems to be being forgotten is that their being written by humans, and generally under poor conditions. They are not necessarily written by technical experts, but rather the person who is serving as the Subject Matter Expert in that particular block of instruction. Note that I did not say that they *were* subject matter experts in that area, merely that they were filling that position. They may not even be the most technically proficient person in the course with that material.
The tests, the study materials, the textbooks, and the appraisals are all written by the same person. In almost all of the apprentice and craftsman courses that person is going to be one of the instructors in the course. The CDCs are written by someone else - a senior NCO that (in the case of the comm career fields) works in the building, but in a different section.
Also, bear in mind that those people are really very frustrated by the process as well. Why? They don't really get to decide what they teach. That comes from the career field managers. I'll assume you've seen your training records. There is a document in there called a CFETP (Career Field Enlisted Training Plan I think) that outlines all of the tasks that are standard in your career field. Those are the result of a meeting between the career field functionals that meet about every two years to discuss the state of the AFSC. They decide, based on feedback given in career field surveys distributed and submitted by the personnel in the field (YOU!) on what tasks are performed, how often, and to what level. The functionals hammer out what they want to be taught in the courses and at what level and generate the CFETP. Then, for the most part, they step out of the picture.
It is then up to the schoolhouse, if there are major changes, to modify or revise the course to fit the requirements set forth in that document. Nothing more than what is requested can be mandated in the course, all topics must be covered, and only to the level set forth in the CFETP. There's a code table for what levels correspond to what symbols on the listing.
Then the ugly mire starts. Keep in mind, at this point the schoolhouse is already behind the technolgy curve. IT is moving, the requirements set forth for the training is not.
The instructor or CDC Writer that is responsible for the material begins to make the changes. How many CFETP line numbers are going to be taught in the block? How many hours is it going to take to present that material? How is the material going to be presented? Will there be a wartime modification to the material? None