The United States Department of Defense (DoD) and the national security community can be certain that the future will continue to increase in complexity and pace, and that the availability of emerging science, technologies, and information will become more prevalent.  Accordingly, organizational processes, practices, and concepts must continue to evolve.  In the Summary of the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States Secretary of Defense stated that “Cultivating a lethal, agile force requires more than just new technologies and posture changes; it depends on the ability of our warfighters and the Department workforce to integrate new capabilities, adapt warfighting approaches, and change business practices to achieve mission success.” Without sustained and focused efforts to cultivate agility and innovation, the military Services risk decreasing readiness and lethality. 

To address these challenges, Services within the DoD are transitioning from an industrial age learning model to a more agile learning model that better leverages innovative methods, emerging learning science, and technology.  Previous research (Raybourne et al., 2017; Vierling et al., 2018) identified recommended changes to enhance learning within the national security community, including enhancing instructional quality, competency-based learning, personalization, learning on demand, obtaining frequent end user feedback, exploring best practices to create integrated learning capabilities, and incentivizing innovation and performance. However, implementing a new learning model and the above recommendations within DoD has proven challenging.

This paper provides a flexible framework and specific examples from the Marine Corps Training and Education Command (TECOM) to explain how to implement changes to create a more student-focused, integrated, and agile learning environment. Training and education practitioners provided insights regarding obstacles and opportunities to enhance student learning.  Finally, this paper discusses current limitations, challenges, future directions, and recommendations to enhance learning, readiness, and lethality.