Greetings from Colorado

After only 4 days in the office, I headed to Colorado Springs for Parents' Weekend. I'm glad I started early at AACP so that I could get settled and be ready to accomplish something on my return. It was kind of like the first day of school. I had to learn my way around--where is the bathroom, the copy machine, how to login to my computer, meet the staff, etc. I spent the majority of my time doing literature searching to date. Hopefully, this will help me focus my project. However, the more I read, the more ideas I have floating around in my head.

Yesterday, we went to class with Chris. I was disappointed that he only had one class--Law for Commanders. I really enjoy going to class at USAFA. They have a lot of advantages over UK. There are usually 15-20 students per class. Everything is electronic. Students have access to all their assignments and exams (called GRs) on the first day of classes. Students are expected to read (horrors!) and held accountable by being called on in class. The session we attended was definitely an active learning class. The instructors reviewed what constitutes a lawful order (it was actually quite interesting). Then each family had a different situation. We had to compose a lawful order, or so we thought, and give it to our cadet. Each cadet analyzed the order according to the critieria they discussed and decided if it was truly lawful. We could have filmed the class and shown it as an example of appropriate active learning. Today is the opening season football game for the Falcons. Imagine our students going to the game in uniform, and no alcohol. They also have the most awesome flyovers I have ever seen.