Our complex and fast changing world calls for professional experts. In this paper we address the issue of designing training and instruction to support professional development. A lot of current training does not have this focus and can even be misleading. For example the focus on theory, procedures and system handling can stimulate mindless behavior and easily steer away from conceptual thinking and expertise development. We argue that from operational experience as well as from modern brain and cognitive research, it is easy to understand how some of today s training can be counterproductive from the perspective of professional operational performance. We emphasize that a firm base in conceptual thinking is at the heart of all expertise development and that experience is the driving force of human development.

Implementing modern insights is no trivial matter. A paradigm shift is required. In our view this can only be obtained with a shared vision on training and through bottom up implementation. We developed a job oriented training philosophy and a basic training concept for training naval personnel of the operational branch. Central in the training concept is operational challenge, discussion and reflection. We explain the concept in view of our experiences and discuss the descriptive models we developed to support training design. Experts and simulation play a crucial role in making the training philosophy work. We conclude that the transition from formal instruction to development and training on the job can be quite natural and smooth in this training philosophy. We discuss how to consolidate the paradigm and how to control the learning process on essentials.