Have a Maximally Successful Professional Development Opportunity (MSPDO):

"Leveraging technology and collaboration to raise learning experiences to the highest level"

Research (see references) has shown that the most successful training/development activities contain the following components:

1) Get together!

· Collaborate and cooperate: this creates more ownership of the results, stimulates involvement, provides a feeling of community, and pools talents.

2) Create a common goal!

· Participants define training content based on professional areas offocus: The training needs to be relevant to participants needs and reflect the accepted standards.

3) Solve real problems!

· Work on real-world problems: this ensures participants leave training with knowledge they can actually use immediately to improve their performance.

4) Evaluate and assess!

· Use instruments, rubrics, or other methods to ensure the training met the needs, what worked well or should be improved/revisited, was the knowledge transferred, etc.?

5) Follow up!

· Set up post training meeting(s) to discuss results, refresh concepts, and share refinements.