When ASTD (now ATD) rolled out its first competency model back in 2004, it gave the profession of training a unified, research-based guide to the skills and knowledge required in our field. The nine Areas of Expertise in the Model guided our MATD curriculum and ensured that we were teaching our students the “right stuff” needed for success in their
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We are fortunate in the field of training and development to have the option of working either within an organization or for ourselves as either internal or external consultants. Many enter the field with the notion of one day transitioning to an independent practice, while others prefer the security of working for someone else. How do you know if you
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A new research report by ATD titled: Next Generation E-Learning: Skills and Strategies, reveals a significant gap in the expansion of E-Learning and the cause of the gap is surprising. Although a whopping 9 out of 10 of the 526 organizations surveyed said they offer some E-Learning to their workers, with organizations categorized as “high-performance” delivering the largest portion of
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Suppose you are delivering a training session (either virtual or face-to-face) and at the end of the session, a participant says, “I think I’d like to have a job like yours one day. It looks interesting. How can I learn more about the field? What should I do to prepare for a career in this field?” As you formulate an
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There has never been a better time to consider a career in training and development. As the complexity of our world increases, so does the need for those who can design, deliver, and direct the process of knowledge acquisition and management. According to O-Net, a repository of occupational information developed by the U.S. Department of Labor, the job outlook for
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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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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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