Smarter ways to gain skills, or as the DoD puts it: Leveraging the right learning model and embedded analytics for outstanding results in cyber operator training. With the increasing threat of cybercrime and national security issues, growing the number of qualified cybersecurity professionals has become a national imperative. Addressing this problem and specifically developed to enhance the efficacy and efficiency of cyber-operator development and education, the Cyber Operations Academy Course (COAC) is occured as a public-private partnership between City Colleges of Chicago and the Department of Defense (DoD). In two previous iterations, COAC learners with little if any cyber or college experience using an authentic problem-based approach incorporating cooperative and collaborative learning models produced very large positive effects (Cohen,s d=1.34) in pre/post assessments and group comparison. The key to achieving such compelling results is strongly believed to be the mix of an authentic problem strategy, learning "fire" teams, and fire team leaders highly experienced in both cyber operations and teaching. Understanding more deeply how students interact with each challenge and their use and discovery of external resources in solving them has been elusive. This presentation discusses the COAC learning model, the underlying technical platform (ESCALATE) and the incorporation of the Experience API (xAPI) facilitating robust learning analytics were used for summative assessment and continuous course improvement.With the increasing threat of cybercrime and national security issues, growing the number of qualified cybersecurity professionals has become a national imperative. Addressing this problem and specifically developed to enhance the efficacy and efficiency of cyber-operator development and education, the Cyber Operations Academy Course (COAC) is occured as a public-private partnership between City Colleges of Chicago and the Department of Defense (DoD). In two previous iterations, COAC learners with little if any cyber or college experience using an authentic problem-based approach incorporating cooperative and collaborative learning models produced very large positive effects (Cohen,s d=1.34) in pre/post assessments and group comparison. The key to achieving such compelling results is strongly believed to be the mix of an authentic problem strategy, learning "fire" teams, and fire team leaders highly experienced in both cyber operations and teaching. Understanding more deeply how students interact with each challenge and their use and discovery of external resources in solving them has been elusive. This presentation discusses the COAC learning model, the underlying technical platform (ESCALATE) and the incorporation of the Experience API (xAPI) facilitating robust learning analytics were used for summative assessment and continuous course improvement.

"Dr. P. Shane Gallagher is employed by the Institute for Defense Analysis and is supporting the Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative and OUSD Force Training as a learning scientist and education specialist. He received his Ph.D. in Instructional Technology from George Mason University and MA in Educational Technology from the University of New Mexico. Currently, Dr. Gallagher provides learning science and methodological direction for applied research projects and assessment. Evan co-founded Point3 in 2014 and serves as Chief Executive Officer. He worked as a Computer Network Operator for the National Security Agency back when Cyber meant something totally different. Before co-founding Point3 Evan was Director of Customer Experience at Vulnerability Research Labs, a security research firm acquired by Computer Sciences Corporation. He holds a M.S. in computer science from The George Washington University and has four ridiculously good looking children."

Recorded at BSides Philly 2017