Category Archives: 2017

Healthy Confrontation Helps Everyone Grow

By: Tom Ford We have all been there: sitting in a meeting silently disagreeing with the organizer.  You know from your experience that the proposal on the table will not work, but you choose not to speak up because you are a professional.  However, the meeting ends and your boss tasks you with doing something that will fail.  Worst yet

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Why aren’t adult learners actively engaged in training?

Have you ever trained adult learners and noticed that after several minutes that they are looking at you with a blank stare? It is likely that such disengagement is due to overuse of lecturing. While I am not against the technique of lecturing, if used inappropriately, it can impact your audience’s interest, but to facilitate effective training, you need to

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Hey Alumni! Mentor, Serve and Give

If you have thought of being a mentor or have considered coaching someone in the training and development field to enrich their core understanding of a particular practice, right now is the time to start. As a Roosevelt University alumnus, I participate in the school’s peer mentoring program, volunteer on the board for the graduate program in training and development

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Friendship: An Unexpected Benefit Of Training

We often think of training as solely a learning endeavor, but educational events can also serve as opportunities to build new relationships. Whether delivered online or in the classroom, learning experiences–when designed with an eye on socialization–bring people together in ways that typical networking or social events cannot. Learners and instructors have a shared frame of reference (the course content)

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Training Evaluation Series Part 4: Measurement Tools from Scholarly Publications

Last week, in the post, “Measuring Intangible Benefits,” you were introduced to strategies to locate tests that allow you to quantify the intangible outcomes of training by using the Mental Measurements Yearbook. As you will find, the “Yearbook” reviews commercially available tests, but there are many other tests in published research studies. The best database available to locate tests is PsychTests,

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Training Evaluation Series Part 3: Measuring Intangible Benefits

When considering the word “intangible” terms like ethereal, ghostly, spectral, unearthly and supernatural come to mind. Not exactly how we think of the efficient and grounded process of calculating the return on investment (ROI) of training. In the Phillips ROI Methodology (see diagram below), intangible benefits are those that not readily converted to a monetary value; outcomes that are difficult

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Training Evaluation Series Part 2: Formative Assessment

Few words elicit a more immediate and visceral response than the word “test.” That’s because, in most educational settings, we have testing all wrong. Often, tests are s a primary measure of success and in some instances can have lifelong ramifications—like the ACT and SAT—on one’s future. The same holds true for training evaluation. We often focus on summative evaluation

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Training Evaluation Series Part 1: Survey Design Basics

This fall RU Training will offer a series of articles addressing advanced topics in training evaluation. I hope that these posts will benefit our current students and our alumni. This series assumes a basic knowledge of both Kirkpatrick’s Model and Phillip’s ROI Methodology. The first article addresses survey design basics. Surveys are an essential tool throughout the training process. Before

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Reconsidering the American Dream

On this most auspicious day, we not only remember the tragic events of September 11, 2001, but we also begin the American Dream Reconsidered Conference here at Roosevelt University. There are many sessions focusing on this topic and social justice. Click here for more information; in addition, many sessions will be simulcast online. Our country—along with the rest of the

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