University of Wyoming College of Education Spring 2018

Police
Officer
to
Jon Anderle (Ph.D. ’18)
Ph.D.
By: Jason Harper
Jon Anderle is not your typical College of Education student.
Recently earning his Ph.D in education with a concentration
in learning, design, and technology, his journey did not start
in a classroom like most traditional educators. His career
started in a police cruiser.
For 20 years Anderle served the community of Laramie
in various roles, including patrol officer and canine handler,
investigations unit sergeant, professional standards unit
sergeant and operations lieutenant.
Early in his career Anderle attended extra training to learn
more about impaired driving enforcement, an area that he
was passionate about. The skills and knowledge he acquired
during these training sessions led him to become a training
instructor for a variety of disciplines at the department.
Providing training to officers at a local level led Anderle
to want to help improve the skills of officers on a larger scale.
In 2006, Anderle submitted a proposal that would initiate
Wyoming as a Drug Evaluation and Classification Program
state through the International Association of Chiefs of Police
(IACP). The proposal was accepted, and he was appointed as
the first statewide coordinator for the program.
As the statewide coordinator, Anderle was trained and
certified as a drug recognition expert as well as a drug
recognition expert instructor. In this role, he delivered drug
recognition training to police officers and public safety
officials throughout Wyoming. He was later appointed to the
IACP Highway Safety Committee Technical Advisory Panel
and was assigned to the curriculum committee.
Near the end of his career in law enforcement, Anderle
began to think about what was next. He enrolled in Laramie
County Community College (LCCC) and started working
on a degree to position himself to become a police chief, his
plan at the time.
Over the next few years he earned associate of arts degrees
in general studies and psychology and an associate of science
in business administration at LCCC. He was then accepted
to the University of Wyoming College of Business where
he would receive both his Bachelor of Science in Business
Administration and his MBA.
Anderle obtained these degrees while working full-time
and had to take a majority of courses online. Although he
applauds the accessibility and flexibility of LCCC and UW’s
distance educations programs, he noted how different aspects
the programs’ design affected learning outcomes.
For several years leading up to his retirement from the
police force, Anderle taught law enforcement instructor
classes as adjunct faculty at the University of North Florida’s
Institute of Police Technology and Management. There, he
led courses for civilian law enforcement officers as well as the
97th Military Police Battalion from Fort Riley, Kan. While
instructing these students, he began to notice the differences
in how civilian and military personnel learn.
His experiences with teaching and instructional design,
in addition to his experience with learning in an online
environment, led Anderle to realize his passion was for the
field of instructional technology. This realization caused him
to pursue a Ph.D. from UW’s College of Education.
“Delivering impaired driving enforcement training was
definitely the catalyst for my interest in the field,” Anderle
shares, “additionally, having the opportunity to experience
both online and face-to-face classes gave me an appreciation
for the various aspects of instructional design.”
Anderle’s position on the IACP Highway Safety Committee
Technical Advisory Panel Curriculum Committee gave him
the opportunity to provide input on the design and delivery
of various impaired driving training programs throughout the
country.
$4.8M
7
$600,000
165
“Working with a team of national experts on the curriculum
committee provided me an opportunity to incorporate a lot
of the strategies I learned in the PhD program,” Anderle says.
“While I had developed smaller-scale curricula for local and
state topics, it was an honor to help with the mission to save
lives and reduce injuries on a national level.”
Anderle’s experience and knowledge put him in a unique
position to connect the needs of law enforcement training
to the capabilities and resources offered through the field
of instructional technology. “I am committed to helping
build the bridge between best practices in our field and the
increasing needs of public safety officials for efficient and
effective learning design,” he says.
Anderle has accepted a position to work for the National
Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) as the
regional administrator for NHTSA Region 5. “I will be
working with the state highway safety offices in the region as
well as other partners to deliver safety programming designed
to save lives, reduce injuries, and reduce the economic impact
of crashes on our highways,” he shares.
Private Donor Investments
Private Donor Investments
Private Donor Investments
Over $4.8 million in private support raised for the College of
Education in the last 18 months.
Seven new funds were established to support innovation and
excellence in: Special Education, STEM education, Secondary
Education, Counselor Education, and Agriculture Education.
Over $600,00 in new monies raised for the Literacy Research
Center and Clinic to support literacy across the state.
165 College of Education students received nearly $300,000 from
62 different scholarships to support education.
20 • Education@UWYO Spring 2018 Education@UWYO Spring 2018 • 21