Certificate Program

Conference registrants participating in a Certificate Program must attend two, pre-selected one-day workshops and three, topically related 90 minute conference educational sessions. Once complete, participants not only walk away with a Certificate of Completion in a specialized area but enhanced professional know-how.

Conference registrants may participate in one of the following Certificate Programs for a fee of $790 (price includes the cost of the two one-day workshops, but does not include the conference registration fee).

No workshop substitutions will be allowed for the Certificate Program.

• Workshops:  Friday, April 7 & Saturday, April 8
• Conference:  Saturday, April 8 to Tuesday, April 11

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Register for Certificate Code: C01

Required Educational Sessions: 3 educational sessions from the Instructional Systems or Blended Intervention tracks.

Included Workshops:

Developing Low-tech e-Learning Solutions on a Paper-based Budget
Michael Enslin, Principal Consultant, & Nancy Green, CPT, Principal Consultant, Iinteg Inc.; menslin@iinteg.com
Friday, April 7, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WFA)

HPT professionals are often "required" to produce e-learning solutions without being provided an adequate budget. The result can be learning and tools that are ineffective or over budget. Therefore, many believe that quality, engaging e-learning is beyond their technical or budgetary constraints. We challenge that idea! This workshop will show you solutions that are possible and practical using simple, common, and inexpensive tools. Bring your laptop because you will also practice using such tools to develop e-learning during this session!

Participants will be able to: 

• Define low-tech solutions and the media and tools used in them.
• Determine when a low-tech solution is appropriate.
• Communicate the advantages of a low-tech solution.
• Develop low-tech solutions with simple, common, and inexpensive tools.

Authentic Activities for e-Learning and Beyond
Peter C. Honebein, PhD, Principal, Honebein Associates, Inc.; heyhoner@yahoo.com
Saturday, April 8, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WSA)

"On the job training without the job." That's the essence of authentic activities. This performance-based instructional strategy engages, enlightens, and intrigues learners. Built upon solid adult learning principles with a constructivist twist, authentic activities leverage prior learner experiences, improve transfer to on-the-job tasks, and integrate cognitive engagement. Sharing lots of actual examples, this workshop is for designers of instructor-led, e-learning, or a blended training who want to create courses that today's pragmatic, results-oriented learners relish.

Participants will be able to: 

• Define "authentic activity."
• Distinguish between authentic and non-authentic activities.
• Apply a strategy for discovering and capturing authentic activities.
• Link the instructional strategies of situated cognition, cognitive apprenticeship, goal-based scenarios, and emergent learning with specific instructional conditions and outcomes.
• Storyboard an instructional module that incorporates authentic activities and authentic evaluations.

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Register for Certificate Code: C02

Required Educational Sessions: 3 educational sessions from the Instructional Systems track.

Included Workshops:

Faster, Cheaper, Better:  
Alternative Approaches to Instructional Design
Sivasailam Thiagarajan, CPT, PhD, RMS, Matthew Richter, CPT, Vice President, Raja Thiagarajan, Vice President, & Kat Koppet, Vice President, The Thiagi Group; thiagi@thiagi.com
Friday, April 7, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WFB)

Ten years ago, Thiagi stopped using his grandparents' instructional design model and came up with a continuous, concurrent, creative, co-design approach. His associates and hundreds of trainees around the world have used this approach to design corporate training materials faster, cheaper, and better. In this walk-the-talk workshop, learn when, why, and how to apply principles from chaos, creativity, and self-organizing complex systems to develop instruction for the next generation.

Participants will be able to:

• Apply the CCCC (Concurrent, Continuous, Creative, Co-design) approach to rapidly design their training package with greater motivational and instructional impact. 
• Apply proven principles from a variety of disciplines to the design of high-quality, accomplishment-based training materials and methods. 
• Use a variety of templates to structure content and to design appropriate learning activities. 
• Redefine the role of learner to require and reward greater participation in the learning process. 
• Rapidly design training packages by ignoring, combining, re-sequencing, and accelerating the traditional steps in the process.

Efficiency in Learning: Applying Cognitive Load Theory 
for Faster, Better Learning
Ruth Colvin Clark, EdD, President, Clark Training & Consulting, & Frank Nguyen, e-Learning Technology Manager, Intel/Arizona State University; Ruth@clarktraining.com 
Saturday, April 8, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WSD)

In this workshop, participants will learn evidence-based methods to make their instructional environments more efficient. Based on their latest book written with instructional scientist Dr. John Sweller, the presenters will show you how to apply 25 years of research on cognitive load theory to your instructional environments. Whether you are designing classroom, asynchronous, or synchronous e-learning training materials, you will apply the psychology, the techniques, and the evidence behind cognitive load theory proven to result in faster learning, better learning, or both!

Participants will be able to:

• Determine instructional efficiency by calculating and graphing the efficiency metric for sample training materials.
• Distinguish between extraneous, intrinsic, and germane sources of cognitive load.
• Experience their own working memory limits, which are the basis for cognitive load theory.
• Apply the psychology and evidence behind the following principles proven to minimize extraneous sources of cognitive load:
  • Visual representations 
  • Modality
  • Split attention
  • Redundancy
  • Faded worked examples
• Apply the psychology and evidence behind the following principle proven to maximize germane sources of cognitive load:
  • Exploiting worked examples

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Register for Certificate Code: C03

Required Educational Sessions: 3 educational sessions from the Organizational Design/Alignment or Management of Organizational
Performance tracks.

Included Workshops:

Using an HPT Model to Become Management's Strategic Partner
Danny Langdon, President, & Kathleen Whiteside, Founding Partner, Performance International; danny@performanceinternational.com 
Friday, April 7, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WFH)

Perhaps the single task that most plagues HPT professionals is how to become our clients' ongoing partner. They ignore us, criticize us, outplace us, and so forth. How do we change that? How do we become the strategic partner who is part of their daily operations? This workshop provides the answer to these questions in an operational, rather than a programmatic, sense. Become management's strategic partner through a nine-step, systematic, performance-oriented process that will get you performance gap data continuously, allowing you to initiate HPT solutions that improve performance--and finally be management's strategic partner.

Participants will be able to: 

• Identify the obstacles for HPT professionals to being viewed as management's strategic partner. 
• Identify what drives managers; link our technology with those drivers in order to be true partners. 
• Identify a nine-step process for helping managers organize and dramatically improve their departments. 
• Develop an integrated HPT system that meets business operations needs, thus becoming management's strategic partner.

Communication Clues & Cues for Rave Reviews: 
Thinking on Your Feet in the C-Suite
Dianna Booher, President & CEO, Booher Consultants; dianna_booher@booher.com 
Saturday, April 8, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WSB)

Want to create a climate of trust and loyalty among co-workers and your internal clients? Using analogies and clips from popular movies, the presenter shares guidelines for communicating across functional lines and outbound to co-workers and customers to stay competitive in our global economy. The principles provide 10 strategies for communicating clear messages, increasing personal credibility, adding authority, and building stronger relationships.

Participants will be able to: 

• Improve clarity when communicating routine messages and information.
• Encourage an information-sharing attitude to ensure complete, reliable, and timely communication across department lines.
• Lead by managing information flow.
• Build loyalty with those they serve by providing quality service to internal clients.
• Evaluate both the style and substance of personal communication in feedback sessions, team meetings, and client interactions.

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Register for Certificate Code: C04

Required Educational Sessions: 3 educational sessions from the Analysis, Evaluation, & Measurement or Process Improvement tracks.

Included Workshops:

How to Place a Value on Human Capital
Jack J. Phillips, PhD, Chairman, The ROI Institute, Inc.; roiresearch@mindspring.com 
Friday, April 7, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WFE)

Placing a value on human capital is a topic that has always been under much debate. How much should you invest in people? How can you put a dollar value on human capital? What human capital metrics are used by best practice organizations? This interactive workshop will answer these questions and address some of the challenges of current human capital metrics and measurement.

Participants will be able to:

• Select the appropriate strategy for setting the level of investment in human capital.
• Learn a variety of ways to place a monetary value on human capital.
• Learn the current human capital metrics being monitored by best practice organizations.

Connecting Human Performance Improvement Interventions 
to Business Goals and Metrics: Partnering to Achieve 
Bottom-line Results
Tim Mooney & Alan Meeker, Advantage Performance Group;
tmooney@advantageperformance.com
Saturday, April 8, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WSC)

To achieve substantial business impact, performance improvement interventions must be tightly connected to highest priority business needs and goals. In this workshop, which uses a series of hands-on work examples, skill practices, and case studies, you will learn a practical process for connecting performance improvement and training initiatives directly to business strategy, goals, and metrics. This organizational development and needs analysis process will enable you to partner with your performance improvement and training customers to: 

• Clarify the top business goals and priorities.
• Identify measurable performance improvement objectives.
• Define competency development needs.
• Demonstrate the potential return-on-investment of selected interventions.

Participants will be able to: 

• Know the key elements of how to "connect" initiatives to business needs. 
• Learn how to partner with managers to implement initiatives that have their support. 
• Learn how to create a powerful tool called an impact map. 
• Understand the role measurement can play in demonstrating how a partnership with line management pays off in improved business results.

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Register for Certificate Code: C05

Required Educational Sessions: 3 educational sessions from the Analysis, Evaluation, & Measurement or Process Improvement tracks.

Included Workshops:

Needs Assessment: What It Is, What Approaches You Can Use, 
and How to Get One Done
Roger Kaufman, CPT, PhD, Professor Emeritus, Educational Psychology & Learning Systems, Florida State University, and Director, Roger Kaufman & Associates; rkaufman@nettally.com 
Friday, April 7, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WFF)

This workshop identifies available needs assessment models and what each does, and then provides guides for selecting and implementing a best process to identify and prioritize needs that will be useful to all stakeholders. This process, when done correctly, provides the basic data for "researching the radical" and delivering measurable useful results. Participants will be able to define and achieve useful results and prove it. This is an interactive, hands-on workshop.

Participants will be able to:

• Identify available needs assessment models and frameworks and select which ones will best define the measurable requirements for performance improvement and value added.
• Provide the basic data for "researching the radical" and defining and being able to justify what results should be delivered and what the value-add will be.
• Define and execute the steps and tools so that internal and external clients may identify needs as gaps in results, and place those in priority order based on costs and consequences.
• Identify and select the most effective and efficient HPT methods and tools based on solid needs assessment data.
• Provide the evaluation criteria and methods for determining actual value-added and be able to revise as required.

First Things Fast: Strategies to Move from 
Analysis to Solution Systems
Allison Rossett, CPT, EdD, Professor, San Diego State University; arossett@mail.sdsu.edu 
Saturday, April 8, 8:30 am-5:00 pm (WSE)

Now is the time to temper enthusiasm about workplace training with skepticism about whether training alone delivers the goods. What to do? We must build programs based on analysis, tailor solutions to our circumstances, and commit to an irreverent and consultative approach to our customers and the work. In our day together, we will answer the following questions: What is performance analysis? Why is consultation at the heart of the mix? What sources are appropriate? What questions will shed light on both causes and solutions? What roles might technology play? How do we do it in ways that avoid analysis-paralysis? And where do these programs go awry? For typical challenges, such as technology rollouts, compliance, and messed-up performance appraisals, we will work on doing analysis fast and well.

Participants will be able to:

• Describe what performance analysis is and how the process and results can contribute to the individual and organizational mission. 
• Use a conceptual model, one that is based on the quest for information about optimals, actuals, and causes to plan, structure, and carry out needs studies for typical requests for assistance. 
• Describe when to use interviews, surveys, observations, groups, and work product examination for analysis. 
• Use results to frame both appropriate training and non-training solutions. 
• Describe the attributes of effective reporting and critique an array of reports and summaries. 
• Counter objections to analysis from others and figure out ways of doing it better and faster.

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For practitioners who are interested in demonstrating their real-world proficiency as a performance technologist, consider applying for ISPI's Certified Performance Technologist (CPT) designation.

• Learn more from the CPT Web Site.

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