Explanation of and links to web sites created for HRD 860

1. Helping participants properly complete
their activity forms

2.  Clemson University's Staff Development Program
(SDP), a ground-breaking, one-of-a-kind
employee driven and mentor-based program,
completed its Pilot Year in June of 2011.
 Each participant had to identify goals, which
were closely related to not only goals they and
their supervisor identified, but were also related
to the University's goals, and then complete
activities throughout a 10-month period to
satisfy those goals.
 Each participant had to complete 80 hours of
Professional Development, 40 hours of Service
and 30 hours of Personal Development.

3.  Each participant was required to complete a
notebook detailing how they met their goals
and objectives.
 A completed notebook should include a
reflection of how their activities helped
them meet their goals and objectives.
 These notebooks are a matter of public
record and could be viewed by anyone,
including the University administration who
control whether or not the SDP will continue.
It is critical that the participant notebooks
be complete and thorough.

4.  The SDP Notebook is the official record that
participants have successfully completed the
SDP Program.
 In order to successfully complete their
notebook, participants should not only
provide proof that they completed the
activity, but need to:
 list,
 describe and
 reflect on their activities.
All are integral to a successfully completed
notebook.

5. As Tara Fenwick noted in her ERIC Clearinghouse on
Adult, Career, and Vocational Education document
“Experiential Learning: A Theoretical Critique from Five
Perspectives”:
 The dominant approach to understanding experiential
learning in adult education has revolved around
cognitive reflection upon concrete experience, an
orientation commonly known as „constructivism‟.
Educators have developed a variety of ways to
enhance this process, by facilitating adults‟
reflection and critical reflection on experience, by
instigating holistic „experiences‟ in instructional
settings, by coaching and mentoring adults to
enhance their learning in the midst of experience,
and by assessing adults‟ experience. (1)

6.  Reflection of how an activity relates to a
participant‟s goals brings the development
process full circle.
 The participant‟s goals should be closely tied
to enhancing their value to their home unit
as well as the University.
 We just finished our pilot year of this
program. Permission to continue is given
annually and is not guaranteed.
 For continued support, the SDP must
continue to demonstrate its value-added to
the participant, home unit and University.

7.  Review of the Pilot Year participant notebooks
demonstrated very little continuity across
notebooks and inadequate reflections.
 Post-assessment found that most of the
participants had not tied their activities back to
their stated overall program goals (which relate to
themselves, their work unit and the University).
 They did not explain how completing these
activities helped them reach their goals.
 This is an integral part of program completion and
success (for the participants and the program in
general).
 It is critical that this be corrected.

9.  New activity forms are being created for participants
to use in the next cycle that include a place to
reflect on how the activity helps them meet their
goals.
 But simply creating an extra space on new forms
would not explain what needs to be in that space.
 Obviously, participants were not clear on how they
were supposed to tie their activities back to their
goals.
 The new forms were going to take time to create.
 We needed an immediate response to guide
participants and mentors so they understood what we
were asking them to produce in order to be
successful and ultimately for the program to be
successful.

10. A web site to reach all participants, mentors
and Steering Committee members, regardless
of their location:

12. So far the response has been very
positive. Participants and mentors
all say the web sites make the
reflection requirements clearer and
gives understandable examples which
they report have helped them fill out
their participant forms and notebook.
The Mentor Coordinator and the Peer
Review Committee Chairs reviewed
the participant notebooks for the
Pilot Year and will be reviewing the
notebooks in a mid-year review for
the current year. They will
individually and as a group assess
whether the participant notebooks
are more thoroughly completed this
year.