The portfolio of wes stäbler
Designing and overseeing the implementation of an online educational platform to digitize the JROTC curriculum and track cadets' progress year over year.
Structuring a system that supports cadets’ education and career readiness, while helping instructors with lesson planning and grading.
Ensuring the platform is intuitive, user-friendly, accessible, and meets the educational needs of cadets and instructors.
To design a digital portfolio platform that would digitize the curriculum, allowing cadets to easily access their assignments from any device, document their journeys, share accomplishments, and create professional resumes, while giving instructors a way to track cadets' progress, create quizzes, and plan lessons.
Army JROTC cadets were disorganized, carrying around clunky three-ring binders with their homework and assignments all out of order. They had no good way to track their achievements, set goals, and showcase their skills for future opportunities. The lack of a digital platform made it difficult for cadets to visualize their growth year over year.
Cadets add experiences, skills, and certifications as they progress through the program, allowing them to track their accomplishments. The self-reported data is also visible to Cadet Command, who can see what programs work well.
Tools for future success are front-and-center, like Alumni Success Stories, which allow cadets to learn from those who came before them.
The platform hosts all assignments, worksheets, quizzes, tests, and other content and allows instructors to easily create new assignments with an intuitive drag-and-drop "Assignment Creator."
Our platform earned a contract with the US Army and is now used by more than 350,000 JROTC cadets, instructors, and administrators. It is a requirement for every high school with an Army JROTC program nationwide.
Our project elevated cadets' learning experience by fostering deeper engagement with the curriculum. This led to a marked improvement in students’ retention of key concepts and a feeling of ownership over their education.
Streamlined teaching workflows, easier access to resources, and more effective communication with students contributed to a more enriched learning environment. This allowed instructors to spend less time on paperwork and more time actually instructing.
Cadet Portfolio has already redefined military education for cadets and instructors, setting a new standard for digital learning. Its widespread adoption underscores its effectiveness and potential to inspire more innovation in the way citizenship is taught.
Given its success with the Army, the tool is looking to expand to the other branches of the military, including the Navy, the Air Force, and the Marines.
Designing this tool taught me the importance of user feedback and A/B testing. I also learned to be aware of “feature creep.” As instructors made requests, our team tried to make each instructor feel heard. At some point, the tool's structure needed a rebalance, and we had to step back and take inventory of what was most important.
“I think this is a very important tool in the advancement of our serious attempt to build leaders for life through the JROTC program. This helps cadets organize their accomplishments, identify their goals and aspirations, and gives them a means for tracking it through a digital tool. This is clearly moving us into the right direction and into 21st century.”
—Colonel (Retired) Paul Willis | Director of Army Instruction | Jackson, Mississippi
“I’m excited for this because it helps me be more organized, and I won't lose any information from my portfolio.”
—Cadet Colonel Kayla Williams | Cadet, class of 2018 | Atlanta, GA
If you have any feedback, questions, or pointers, I'm all ears! Feel free to discuss this project or anything else you've seen on this site.
