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December 2024

Welcome to the 2nd Edition of the T2 Instructor Quick Tips Newsletter! Winter is a great time to make small changes that can have a big impact! As the new year begins, we strongly encourage you to take a moment to review your class materials, presentations, and learning activities while you prepare for your Spring workshops.

Meaningful Learning Objectives

Learning objectives are brief statements describing what participants will be able to do after successfully completing your workshop. Learning objectives provide a strong foundation and help participants understand why your class content and activities are important. We highly encourage you to introduce learning objectives at the start of class and revisit them at the end to ensure they were met.

Objectives should be:

• Specific – detailed and without ambiguity.
• Measurable – observable performance or action by the learner.  
• Learner-centered – focused on what the learner will achieve or demonstrate.

You can use this format for developing your learning objectives, as it is considered best practice:

• As a result of participating in (workshop/class name), you will be able to (action verb) (learning statement).

Bloom’s Taxonomy’s verbs, or thinking verbs, are powerful instructional planning tools. Below is a nice list of verbs that we encourage you to use! With this, please make sure the learning objectives are realistic given the amount of time you'll have with learners.

You can read more about Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy by clicking the link.

A Question to Consider: How can you revise your learning objectives to fit the criteria above and make meaning for your learners?

Keeping Your Learners Engaged

Below is another great resource developed by the National Highway Institute (NHI) that provides a checklist of Tools, Tips, and Techniques for getting and keeping your learners engaged!

If you have particular challenges with your class participants and want to discuss your questions or concerns, feel free to email Vanessa at vanessa.corrao@uconn.edu. We’re happy to help!

Start 2025 Out Right! 

Use this Winter to update your T2 Center Presentations. Remember, we will require all our instructors to use our new T2 PowerPoint template beginning in 2025. Winter is a great time to gear up for 2025 and get your slides into the new format! 

If you have questions or need help, first, please view the recording on best practices for use and tips on transferring a presentation from its existing template.

If you are still struggling with a slide or two, let Vanessa vanessa.corrao@uconn.edu or Mary mary.c.mccarthy@uconn.edu know and we will be glad to help you out!

Remember Your Audience

As you are moving slides over to our new template, take a few minutes to consider the audience for each class. 

Questions to Consider:

• Are they new to Public Works and/or transportation?
• Are they seasoned veterans taking an advanced class? 
• Are they decision-makers or front-line staff? 

Make some notes at the beginning of your presentation to remind yourself of who will be attending and what the learning objectives are for the class. As you review your slides, set some reminders, as well. Think about what types of questions you should ask them, based on their background.

Questions to Consider:

• Are you asking questions they be will able to answer? 
• How can you integrate activities and interactions that will make connections to their experiences? 

If you are struggling with any of these questions, please connect with us so we can help you!

What's Happening in CT

We need to continue to bring awareness to all facets of our public works and local traffic authority audience, so please consider how you might integrate this message into your upcoming trainings. 

There is some good work being done to address the crash situation we currently have in Connecticut. We encourage you to include the resources below in your trainings. Please remember, there are many topics that would benefit from this message. 

Fiscal Corner

A Note From Our Financial Staff:

Instructors, please take some time over the Winter to make sure all of your contact information is up to date in our Husky Buy system for the new year. Thank you!

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