Introduction
Education is a lifelong process. It is the backbone for individual success and the appreciation of one’s life history. It is the foundation for upgrading an individual's knowledge and skills to the highest levels. In line with this, military personnel are considered adult learners, as they are already performing their mandated tasks in securing the peace and sovereignty of the people and the country at a relatively young age, with diverse learning needs. Therefore, it is believed that pursuing Education and a broader spectrum of knowledge is paramount for an adult learner, specifically a soldier, whether they have already completed a four-year degree course or not. It is said that Learning is a continuous process. No matter how diverse people are in terms of learning, their age, job, and affiliations, learning will always be present because upgrading of skills and knowledge is always ongoing through training and schooling in a particular institution. Most especially to adult learners, they tend to learn best through real-life experiences, problems, life and death situations on the ground, aerial, and naval troops, where in it develop their critical thinking abilities, confidence in doing their job, vigilance, alertness, and quick decision-making skills, which is very crucial, relevant and timely in the lives of military personnel.
To design and develop policies and programs that respond to adult learners’ needs, it is essential to understand the dynamics that underlie adults’ participation and non-participation in learning. If not fully captured, policies and programs are not able to engage those adults who need learning the most. Evaluations and studies on adult learning policies consistently report that specifically disadvantaged adult learners can hardly be re-engaged in learning, despite tailoring the approach to solving group-specific barriers. Adult learning policies need to be based on an understanding of the inequalities in the uptake and benefits of learning, and why adults might not participate. This needs to go beyond a mere insight into barriers that, once removed, no longer provide a reason for adults not to participate. This article aims to delve deeper into understanding what makes adults choose to learn. (Borek et al., 2023).
With this theory in mind, since adult learners are diverse learners, to design and develop effective strategies or programs of instruction, there is a need to understand the adult learners' needs and to delve deeper into what makes adults choose to learn. For instance, in the military organization, the instructors already understood that military personnel assigned to different Units have their mission or goals to support the country, whereas in the 580th Aircraft Control and Warning Wing, Wallace Air Station, performing excellent radar operations and capabilities is the priority and the salient goals to achieve our mission. Since the need to learn radar operations was already identified, crafting or applying the instructional strategies or the learning approaches starts at this point. Instructors are responsible for ensuring that the students attending radar-related courses learn the necessary skills and knowledge to operate the radars manually. It always starts with proper learning motivation. That is why the instructors must conduct or incorporate feedback mechanisms to know and identify different problems of the students concerning radar-related courses or their strategies as a way of innovation and improvement, which later on results in better learning among military personnel.
The 580th Aircraft Control and Wing is best known as the Eyes and Ears of the Philippine Air Force and the Home of the Air Battle Managers for its air defense capabilities and as the only radar Unit that provides radar-related schooling to active military personnel in the Philippine Air Force. At present, the Wing has five (5) Radar sites situated throughout the islands of Luzon and Mindanao that cover the Philippine Air Defense Identification Zone (PADIZ). All five Radar Sites are a significant part of the 580th Aircraft Control and Warning Wing, Wallace Air Station, City of San Fernando, La Union. To man these radar sites, military personnel who are deployed must possess Radar-Related schooling to continue its prowess, activation and help achieve the Wing’s Vision and Mission in carrying and supporting the Air Defense Mission which becomes the role of the instructors to produce excellent Radar Operators, Radar Maintenance, Air Weapons Controllers and even Air Battle Managers utilizing their instructional strategies in teaching Radar-related courses to active military personnel. The Philippines possesses different training schools throughout Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao that provides academics and practical exercises to all its uniformed personnel such as the Armed forces of the Philippines.
Instructors are responsible for providing a premium in core competencies in planning and implementing classroom instruction, and possess the necessary knowledge of the standards set forth for personnel to be ready for radar operations, air weapons controller, radar maintenance, air surveillance, and Air Battle Management. The skills and attitude of each personnel member needed to be enhanced and standardized, as they are the future of the 580th Aircraft Control and Warning Wing, which will fulfill the roles of radar operators, maintenance personnel, surveillance controllers, and air battle managers with the help of instructors teaching radar courses to the personnel. Air Defense is the first line of defense in detecting unknown tracks and intrusions from other aircraft without proper authority to enter the Philippine Area of Responsibility, so knowing that Wallace Air Station produces excellent students with great performances on Radar operations and maintenance is of utmost importance since radar operations is crucial when it comes to safeguarding, scanning the skies all day and night and guiding friendly planes on their flight to successfully carry out their mission and tasks.
This study served as a support for military personnel (officers and enlisted) who are willing to pursue their civilian education as their learning tool in making a Research proposal. This study served as the light to all the Aircraft Controller Instructors of the 580th ACWW on how they deliver and promote better education to all Active Military personnel (Officers and Enlisted) in 58Oth ACWW. Additionally, for Educational Institutions, this study served as a guide and support in learning different teaching strategies from the Instructors in a Military Perspective, in which greatly helped those who desired to learn more about military education. Lastly, this study was essential not only to those students who are doing their research proposal which is related with military education/training or schooling but for the Researcher as well, where in it honed her skills and knowledge in terms of writing a research paper, helped her feel motivated, dedicated and fulfilled as Military Enlisted personnel who kept on pursuing higher education (Civilian Schooling).
The study answered the research questions that pertains to: (1) What is the extent of practice of the instructional strategies Instructors used in teaching radar-related courses based on the experiences of the respondents; (2); Is there a significant difference on the extent of practice of the different instructional strategies along academic phase and synthetic phase; and (3) What output can be proposed to promote better learning among active military personnel who undergo radar-related courses?
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