In the world of rapid instructional design, just-in-time training solutions, and virtual classrooms, has face-to-face training become obsolete? Eppley's Asset Management for Superintendents course proves that it is not. With that said, this is "not your mother's" classroom training.

What Makes Asset Management for Superintendents Different
Based on a combination of Socratic Method, discovery learning, and peer-to-peer learning, this four-hour workshop helps National Park Service Superintendents synthesize their knowledge of facility management to better see how this vital discipline fits in with the greater park management picture. But it does so in a truly unique way.

The primary course materials are four 11"x17" sheets of printed transparency which, when pieced together, form an approximately 20"x30" poster depicting the four vital signs of a healthy asset portfolio (see the complete image below). As a group, participants take notes, doodle, and complete activities which help them understand the vital signs directly on the layouts. They then take that knowledge to analyze reports about their parks in order determine how healthy their asset portfolio is. The roles of the instructors for the course is also unique; rather than "experts" who impart information, the instructors act as "facilitators" of the group discussion, asking leading questions in the Socratic style, so learners discover answers on their own.

If this course sounds messy, it is. But the messiness and non-linearity are design elements based on a learning needs analysis (LNA) of the audience and cognitive research. The LNA found that Superintendents already knew many of the concepts of asset management, but did not see how all of the concepts fit together into an overall strategy and were not making decision based on that knowledge. Therefore, what they really needed was a chance to put the pieces together, to construct meaning as it relates to them in their situation right now. In order to aid in construction of this new cognitive structure, the course applies some of the results from Stephen, Dixon, and Isenhower's Dynamics of Representational Change: Entropy, Action, and Cognition (2009). In this study, the researchers found that a small amount of messiness (what Stephen et al. labeled "environmental entropy") actually increases the rate at which new cognitive structures are formed. In Asset Management for Superintendents, the environmental entropy took a number of forms: 1) non-linear flow of information; 2) the acquisition of any new information from classroom or group discussion; and 3) deciphering accurate and inaccurate data in order to evaluate their park.

The Results
The results to date have been very promising; the Superintendents have been very active during the course and the evaluations have been remarkably positive, as have observations and feedback from the instructors. However, as the course is still quite new (just over a year old), it is yet unclear whether the participants have actually put what they learned this into action.

Discussion
Distance education solutions are undeniably an incredible tool at the hand of quality instructional designers; however, they cannot be the only solution. A distance education version of Asset Management for Superintendents simply would not have been able to achieve the same level of intricacy and interpersonal interaction, both of which are the key components through which the learning objectives are achieved. In short, there is still a place for the traditional classroom in modern training, but, more than ever, it must be linked to the course goals.