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fwiffo wrote:QUOTE (fwiffo @ Jul 30 2010, 11:36 AM) no pls dont. there's a vast difference between teaching someone how to map controls and how to kill a miner with a scout. having students with such differences in skills in one session will make it very very boring for some and very very confusing for others.

I don't know how CDT is ran now, but when I took it, this would not (and was not) the case. Learning material (whether how to kill a miner in a scout or understanding Shakespeare) is best done when it is a self-ran process (see Constructivism for more info). In CDT (when I took it), you had general material available for reading and you took whatever time you had to practice by playing the game. There were rarely ever actual events (I think we had one total) and the instructors helped you out with whatever YOU asked about, related to game material or not. It was really centered on the students interests with a curriculum there to provide the structure for those that didn't have specific interests or needed the guidance.

This meant that, while each student was learning, the material being learned was at multiple skill levels and individualized instruction was taking place. There were lessons on dropping prox while approaching aleph at high speed, using retro booster while I was learning what the word "drop" meant. It all flowed very well.

Again, I cannot comment on how CDT is run now, but the learner centered constructivist approach seemed to work very well in our class.

when i took it, i too just read a lot and worked at my own pace. today, the learning curve is still there, but i'd like to think that group training sessions do promote better grasp of the concepts... at least that's what i'm getting from last session's feedback. i guess it's a little more time consuming than the self learning approach but it helps establish baseline competency when you know that a class can at least do X properly.

fwiffo wrote:QUOTE (fwiffo @ Jul 30 2010, 01:46 PM) when i took it, i too just read a lot and worked at my own pace. today, the learning curve is still there, but i'd like to think that group training sessions do promote better grasp of the concepts... at least that's what i'm getting from last session's feedback. i guess it's a little more time consuming than the self learning approach but it helps establish baseline competency when you know that a class can at least do X properly.

+1

In AFS when we did that Miner O/D session I feel like I got a whole lot more out of it, rather than reading Cadet Material and practicing on my lonesome.

Elzam V. Branstein wrote:QUOTE (Elzam V. Branstein @ Jul 30 2010, 12:47 PM) +1

In AFS when we did that Miner O/D session I feel like I got a whole lot more out of it, rather than reading Cadet Material and practicing on my lonesome.

As long as organized sessions are not required and/or the focus is still on individual instruction (instructor sees student in game, talks to them, makes suggestions), all is good:).

fwiffo wrote:QUOTE (fwiffo @ Jul 30 2010, 05:36 PM) no pls dont. there's a vast difference between teaching someone how to map controls and how to kill a miner with a scout. having students with such differences in skills in one session will make it very very boring for some and very very confusing for others.

How?

What I'm saying is when people feel done with AFS, they should automatically go onto Cadet.

i.e: Make it Cadet I and II again, re-name it, and strongly emphasise that it is completing Cadet II that counts.

cross post:

It's much harder to help AFS guys (non-instructor types) when you don't know what the current focus in AFS/CDT is. In old school CDT, there was "scout week" and the whole community knew it was scout week and CDTs should get their butts into scouts! That doesn't seem to happen any more and so the support of the community as a whole is gone from CDT and instructors bear the full weight.

Come to think of it, that may be one of the biggest issues right now. ..mmm.

hrm.. afaik we still got scout week, bbr week, sf week ,etc etc... and as far as community support, there's usually at least one or two instructors playing in pugs along w/ the cdts, letting comms know, for example, to let the cdt drive the bbr (if its base destruction week).


cookie monster:

makes more sense when you quote the whole thing:

QUOTE

Cookie Monster wrote:QUOTE (Cookie Monster @ Jul 30 2010, 06:29 AM) even try and combine it into one programme

no pls dont. there's a vast difference between teaching someone how to map controls and how to kill a miner with a scout. having students with such differences in skills in one session will make it very very boring for some and very very confusing for others.
[/quote]

everyone in afs is encouraged to go to cdt2 i dont know where anyone has got the idea that once you get out of afs, you've got all the tools you need. im too pragmatic to worry about naming conventions. right now afs and cdt2 works... dont care much to confuse new folks with renaming it back to cdt1 or whatever

AFS is still basically exactly the same as Cadet I, and the students are still being encouraged just as strongly to continue on to Cadet II. The biggest difference is that rather than "graduating" Cadet I and then getting no assistance whatsoever for the three months it takes for a new Cadet II session to start, they enter AFS whenever they feel like and stay in it until the next Cadet session opens up. Essentially, it's a daycare for noobs to keep them interested and learning until Cadet time comes around. The only way to "graduate" AFS is to move on to Cadet II, so I'd say that Cookie Monster is barking up a nonexistent tree (is that nice enough for you, oh mighty mods, or am I going to get my post deleted again for being mean about how terribly wrong Cookie is about everything?).

Cadet was fun when i took it...

of course that may just be due to the high % of future vets that graduated that class.

fwiffo wrote:QUOTE (fwiffo @ Jul 30 2010, 07:52 PM) hrm.. afaik we still got scout week, bbr week, sf week ,etc etc... and as far as community support, there's usually at least one or two instructors playing in pugs along w/ the cdts, letting comms know, for example, to let the cdt drive the bbr (if its base destruction week).

Is there perhaps someway to get this information out the community regularly? Maybe the MotD? It's almost never updated. I play regularly every day around lunch (almost every day) and I NEVER know what week it is. I haven't even heard any AFS student mention what week it was. I would definitely pimp it if I knew.