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September 2025

In this edition of the Instructor Quick Tips Newsletter, we’re highlighting the Gallery Walk in action, along with a reminder of other engaging instructional strategies to keep your learners active and involved. With the Fall training season gearing up, it’s the perfect time to refresh your toolkit! We’ll also be sharing an important reminder about trauma-informed teaching and why it’s important to consider your audience in every learning environment.

Gallery Walk in Action

Last year, we introduced an instructional strategy called the Gallery Walk. This technique encourages participants to get out of their seats and move around the room to engage with content, such as text, images, or other material. As they walk around the room, participants record their thoughts at each station, take note of key observations, or ask questions. The activity can be done silently or used as an opportunity for discussion.

At this year’s National Local and Tribal Technical Assistance Program (NLTAPA) Conference, Vanessa Corrao used the Gallery Walk strategy during her session on Training Coordination Tools and Strategies. She posed the following questions:

• When you think of a seamlessly coordinated training, what made it feel ‘seamless’ to you, your instructors, or the participants?
• What is one tool, strategy, or mindset you can’t live without at your Center when coordinating trainings?
• What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced in coordinating trainings, and how did you overcome it?
• If you could change one thing about how trainings are coordinated at your Center, what would it be and why?
• How do you define success when it comes to training coordination?

Participants worked in small groups to respond to each prompt. They rotated through the stations, reading and adding to the notes left by others. This interactive approach created space for engagement, learning, and the exchange of valuable insights.

Instructional Strategies to Add to Your Toolkit

Here are the top 5 easiest instructional strategies to try in your Fall workshops! Be sure to share with us when you’ve used these strategies and how you applied them in your training sessions.

• Think Pair Share: Reflect individually, discuss with a partner, then share with the group.
• Quick Write: Take a minute to jot down ideas or answers to a prompt before discussing.
• Sticky Note Summaries: Write key points or questions on sticky notes and post for group review.
• Jigsaw Activity: Each group learns one part of a topic and then teaches it to others.
• Speed Sharing: Learners rotate quickly to share a tip, idea, or reflection.

Trauma-Informed Teaching

What is Trauma?

The body and brain's reaction to a stressful event or situation. For adult learners, trauma can influence how they engage in training, affecting their focus, participation, and confidence. As instructors, we encourage you to be mindful of the experiences and lives of others when you are planning exercises, activities, or even stories that you share.

To learn more, check out this video by Dr. Dan Siegal on how he explains survival responses with a hand model. 

Instructor Tips:

• Be flexible and adapt. No two learners are alike!
• Use empathy and respect toward one another.
• Be patient and provide choices. It is impossible to know everyone’s history and needs.
• Promote skills that help learners be curious and empower them to use their own voice.
• Minimize judgement, shaming, guilting, or gaslighting. Turn a tense moment into a learning/teaching moment.

Tips Courtesy of Dr. Castella Copeland-Smith

You Are T2!

Thank you all for your partnership in bringing quality education to the transportation community in Connecticut. We are proud of our cohort of instructors and the incredible breadth of expertise you provide during your sessions with our audience. We consider you to be part of our T2 family.

Whether you are with one of our facilitators at a general session or out on your own bringing custom training to a municipality or the Department of Transportation, you represent our program. As such, I wanted to provide a few reminders on how you can best represent the T2 Center.

• Please be sure to provide up-to-date information on practice, policy, and technology during your sessions. As experts in your respective fields, we rely on you to stay in tune with changes in the industry and on the topic you are teaching.
• Please be careful when discussing particular situations, companies, or individuals. We are there to provide technical information and are sometimes asked for specific advice. This can put you in a difficult position, but please do not speak poorly of a specific person, contractor, or company, regardless of your personal experience with them. Chances are strong that you are only hearing one side of the story.
• Be sure to support best practices and “new” techniques and technologies. Change is difficult, so having our team provide information and support as our towns transition to new techniques, policies, regulations, etc., is imperative. Whether we are teaching about Superpave, Road Diets, or Leading with Empathy, we need to help our towns understand how to integrate these practices into their operations.

Please review your materials and reflect on your teaching methods with these principles in mind. I am happy to discuss any of this with you further and look forward to our continued partnership!

What's Happening in Connecticut?

Fiscal Corner

Invoice Reminder: To ensure timely processing, all invoices should be sent via email to Mickey Morabito (Mickey.Morabito@uconn.edu) unless a T2 team member has instructed otherwise. This helps us keep things moving smoothly and avoids unnecessary delays.

Are you a new instructor (supplier) with UConn? Here's how to get started:

• A UConn finance team member must submit a request through the HuskyBuy portal.
• Once submitted, the system sends an activation email to the prospective instructor from HuskyBuySupport@uconn.edu
• The instructor is invited to register via the Jaggaer Supplier Network (JSN) and/or the UConn HuskyBuy Supplier Portal.
• The instructor completes the registration by providing:
• Company information
• Contact details
• Payment preferences
• Tax documentation
• After submitting the registration, it is routed for approval.
• Once approved, the requesting department is notified, and the instructor becomes active for purchasing.

Have a question or a topic idea for the next edition of the Instructor Quick Tips newsletter? Don't keep it to yourself! Reach out to Vanessa Corrao, vanessa.corrao@uconn.edu, and let’s make the next issue even more incredible.

Connecticut Training and Technical Assistance Center

270 Middle Turnpike, Unit 5202

Storrs, CT 06269-5202

Phone: 860-486-9373