Introduction

In 2016, a new federal law passed to establish minimum training standards for entry-level commercial motor vehicle drivers. This created a need for the Training Provider Registry, which connects prospective driver students with qualified training providers.

After our team developed and launched an online system for training providers to register on the Training Provider Registry, we received many questions from providers on the registration process. The DOT often utilizes live webinars to address questions from stakeholders, but our federal client was concerned this format would lead to missed questions and low attendance. Instead, they recruited my team to develop a Q&A eLearning course.

My team collected registration questions from providers across the nation. Then, the Communications Lead drafted a script.

My responsibilities included:

• Editing the script
• Meeting with the client to record the audio in Microsoft Teams
• Extracting the audio and live captions through Microsoft Stream
• Designing the eLearning course in Articulate Storyline 360, including all slides, animation, audio, captioning, logic, etc.
• Creating the transcript and working with the Accessibility team to make it 508-compliant
• Collecting team and client feedback through Articulate Review 360 and finalizing the content for publishing

NOTE: The animation was purposely kept clean and simple, as requested by our client. The final product exceeded their expectations, and we received many accolades—so much so that the Communications Lead and I received our company’s STAR Award that week. ★

Released in August 2021, this Q&A eLearning course has proven to be a valuable resource for training providers during the registration process.

Click here to view the eLearning course.

Every 18 months, the Data Quality Program (in partnership with the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance) hosts a nationwide conference for its state partners. The goal of the conference is to provide states with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to submit complete and accurate crash and inspection data to the federal government.

March 2021 was the first time the conference was virtual (due to the pandemic). I joined the Data Quality team as the learning strategist after the session content had been developed, so most of my time was spent on evaluating learner success.

One of my favorite L&D activities is evaluation, and there are not many things I enjoy more than designing a survey. 🤓 For past Data Quality conferences, evaluation consisted of two survey questions at the end of each training session and one all-encompassing survey at the end of the conference, and I was required to follow this format.

In addition, I asked to be involved in the development of the in-session poll questions. The plan was for the instructors to write these questions themselves; however, after seeing a few questions during our practice sessions, I knew they could be improved. 

I used the previous surveys and current poll questions as a starting point, then I worked with Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from each of the 17 training sessions to fully understand their content and session goals. It was a collaborative process with the internal team and SMEs, resulting in: 

• An 18-question post-conference survey shared with participants via SurveyMonkey
• 34 post-session survey questions shared with participants via Zoom Webinar
• 25 in-session poll questions shared with participants via Zoom Webinar

Raw data is great, but to understand the story it’s trying to tell you, you must analyze it. After the conference, I approached my federal client and recommended I write a comprehensive evaluation report. This resulted in the most in-depth analysis of the conference to date, and the findings were eye-opening.

I took the data from the above surveys and polls—as well as data from the attendance reports, discussion board records, chat box records, and post-conference interviews with the instructors and team members—and wrote a 44-page evaluation report. 

I cannot share the proprietary evaluation report here, but below is a summary of what it included.

• Report Purpose
• Key Takeaways
• Data Sources
• Metrics
• Evaluation
  • Post-Training Evaluation
  • Post-Session Evaluations
  • In-Session Polls
  • Positive Feedback
• Training Development
  • Content
  • Logistics
• Training Observations
  • Content
  • Logistics
• Lessons Learned
  • Content
  • Logistics
• Best Practices
  • Communication
  • Engagement
  • Content
  • Logistics
• Ideas for Future Training
  • Content
  • Logistics
• Long-Term Impact
• Appendix

I then presented my findings to our federal client, who was delighted to finally understand our strengths and weaknesses. A few months later, we began planning for the next nationwide conference, and my evaluation report served as the cornerstone for all major decision making.

This project was for the 2022 Data Quality conference (the 2021 conference is mentioned above). The client asked me to develop and lead a “Train the Trainer” session for the conference instructors before we kicked off the next year of planning. 

While the instructors had taught these sessions in the past, they were not formally trained educators—they were data analysts who were required to teach occasionally. It had been a few years since they had attended a Train the Trainer session, and since I had just completed a full evaluation of last year’s conference (see above), it was the perfect time to address some areas that needed improvement and provide some helpful tools they could directly apply to their content development.

I owned this project from start to finish. However, there were some restrictions. The Train the Trainer session had to be beginner-level, 90 minutes or less, virtual, and PowerPoint-based. To make the training engaging, I included open discussion, group work via breakout rooms, games, a supplemental handout, and lots of PowerPoint animation. 

Because this training was scheduled at the very beginning of the conference planning process, and because I noted some shortcomings in content development when analyzing last year’s conference, I decided the Train the Trainer would be focused on best practices when designing and developing training content. In other words, it would answer the question, Where do I start?

Here is a summary of my development process:

1. Researched best practices in designing and developing training content
2. Created a storyboard
3. Met with Communications team members for feedback on the storyboard
4. Edited and finalized the storyboard
5. Drafted a PowerPoint presentation based on the storyboard
6. Met with Communications team members for feedback on the PowerPoint
7. Edited the PowerPoint 
8. Met with the federal client for overall feedback on the training approach
9. Edited and finalized the training
10. Designed a supplemental handout
11. Shared the handout with a Communications team member for feedback
12. Edited the supplemental handout
13. Shared the handout with the federal client for feedback
14. Finalized the handout
15. Practiced presenting and finalized the speaker notes
16. Met with Communications team members to practice using the virtual meeting platform
17. Shared the handout with participants before the training
18. Led the training

I cannot share the proprietary PowerPoint presentation or Zoom recording of the training, but below is a summary of the content.

• Introduction (2 minutes)
• Fun icebreaker (1 minute)
• List of learning outcomes (1 minute)
• Agenda (1 minute)
• Overview of Backward Design, including discussion prompts (10 minutes)
  • Step 1: Determine Learning Outcomes
  • Step 2: Plan Assessments
  • Step 3: Create Content
• Step 1: Determine Learning Outcomes
  • Examples of a weak and strong learning outcome, including discussion prompts to help learners discover the two rules to follow when writing learning outcomes (6 minutes)
    • Rule #1: Action verbs should be observable and measurable (shared some examples) (3 minutes)
    • Rule #2: Learning outcomes should include a condition statement, action statement, and criteria statement (3 minutes)
  • Group Activity: Learners joined breakout rooms in groups of three to four and practiced writing a learning outcome for their assigned Data Quality training session, then everyone reconvened and shared their outcomes with the group (15 minutes)
• Break: Stand, stretch, and hydrate (1 minute)
• Step 2: Plan Assessments (1 minute)
  • Examples of informal assessments, noting that this Train the Trainer had already used all but one of them: games (3 minutes)
  • Game: Demonstrated how to use a game as an assessment, where learners practiced what they learned in Step 1 by identifying which verbs are measurable and observable and which are not (7 minutes)
• Step 3: Create Content (1 minute)
  • The importance of engagement (4 minutes)
  • The importance of having fun (2 minutes)
  • Examples of engaging activities (3 minutes)
  • Group Activity: Learners joined breakout rooms in the same groups of three to four and outlined an engaging activity for their assigned Data Quality training session (based on the learning outcome they had previously written), then everyone reconvened and shared their activities with the group (15 minutes)
• Recap: Asked the learners to summarize Backward Design, the two rules to follow when writing learning outcomes, and why engagement is important (7 minutes)
• Closing and questions (4+ minutes)

This was my favorite project at the DOT to date. I was given full autonomy, built an entire training from scratch, and got to apply my teaching skills. The training was very well received, and the instructors continued to reference and apply what they learned during those 90 minutes for months after.