|
 |
|
• PD Seminars |
|
• Organizing a PDS |
There is little risk in organizing a PDS. With careful planning and diligent work, success is almost certain. The PDS activity is not intended primarily as a money-making venture, so chapters are urged to hold registration fees to a minimum for the widest possible attendance. The PDS handbook can help guide chapter efforts.
The ACM Local Activities Coordinator should be notified of your chapter's intention to conduct a PD seminar. This is less an approval process than it is a means of gathering information which can be disseminated among other chapters and SIGs to help them in similar efforts. Notification should be sent six weeks before the seminar date.
Organizing a PDS, especially the first time, can be a lot of work. It is recommended that a committee be established with the following members and responsibilities:
Organize committee, define responsibilities Call meetings, prepare agenda File PD request with ACM Decide if cancellation is necessary
Solicit topic ideas from committee Select final subjects and speakers Contact instructors and obtain agreement Work with instructors on topical outline and vita Obtain student handouts and bibliography from instructors Assist in preparing visual aids Print and bind student handouts Distribute, collect, and analyze evaluations
Contact other societies, IEEE, DPMS, etc. Prepare publicity brochure Obtain electronic mailing lists, including ACM members in your area Contact local businesses, newspapers Select printer Print and mail or email brochure
Receive registrations and fees Set up processing procedures Maintain attendance list Notify attendee in case of cancellation
Prepare budget for each committee function, and total Deposit registration fees Pay instructors and other bills Issue final budget report
Local Arrangements Chairperson
Investigate sites for committee approval Make signs (parking, registration, rooms) Provide refreshments Secure projectors, lectern, etc.
Spring is a good time for PDS. People begin to stir after a long winter and are susceptible to new ideas. In the summer many people are away on vacation. Fall is good, except that some people are in school or launching other activities. Winter offers unpredictable weather. Watch out for conflicts with the opening ball game, start of hunting season, religious holidays, or other major meetings (e.g., an ACM or SIG Conference, etc.)
PDSs can be held during the day, on weekends, or in the evening. Evenings draw well, particularly where there is a large population base within an hour's drive of the chosen location. Days obviously require people to be away from work; inconvenient for many, and weak-end days cut seriously into personal and family time. If the speaker is from out of town and is well known, one or two full days should work well. With a professional-looking publicity brochure, most companies would grant time off for good quality training.
For evening seminars, a good plan used successfully is for meetings to be held on a series of successive Tuesdays, or Thursdays. In fact, multiple PDS's can be offered with two non-conflicting subjects each of three different nights of the week, thus maximizing the available audience.
A teaching day is usually six hours long, with a break at least each 90 minutes.
The critical path runs through production of the publicity brochures. No less than four months should be allowed for adequate planning. the brochures should be received about a month before classes begin, and the deadline for registrations should be about 10 days before to allow time for local arrangements. Inevitably, there will be a crunch at the door. Others will insist on a cash refund. A refund deadline should be noted in the brochure. Some people will be late, some will get lost, a speaker will need 1 3-prong adapter for his projector. Try to anticipate these problems, post signs where necessary, have an adequate staff on hand to iron out bugs. Write procedures in advance and follow them.
Selection of Topics and Instructors
Suggestions for PDS topics can come from many sources. Committee members will have their own ideas. The chapter membership can be surveyed by asking them to rank order a list of topics and to write their own. Frequently-seen articles in trade publications are good candidates, and the list of ACM national lecturers, available on the web at http://www.acm.org/top/lect.html, is a good source of topics and instructors.
Many chapters believe it is important for the instructor to be a nationally known figure. But they might also discover that members of their own chapter are doing very good work, worth sharing with others. There is much appeal in a home-grown PD seminar.
If an outside instructor is desired, the ACM national lecturers are people with proven topics and speaking ability. Sometimes more than one speaker is used, for example, in a PDS comparing data base management systems. And if the PDS can be combined with a chapter meeting, ACM will subsidize travel expenses for an ACM lecturer. Remember that the Honorarium Policy limits speaker remuneration.
Experimental topics can be tried -- there is no requirement that all PD seminars have universal appeal. One chapter ran a seminar called "Getting the Most out of your Hand-Held Calculator" > (It flopped.)
It is preferable that the course have been conducted before. If this is impossible, the instructor should be secured well enough in advance to have adequate time to prepare. A rough rule of thumb is that it may take 10 hours of preparation for each hour of class time. If the instructor is very familiar with the material or has prior outlines, preparation time can be cut in half. On the other hand, if the instructor must research the topic or prepare student problems or quizzes, the time budget should be doubled.
The program chairperson should work with the instructor regarding course content. Then the former should establish a time table of due dates for the teaching outline, visual aids, and student handouts. It is not safe to assume that the instructor is making progress just because time is elapsing. Rather, delivery dates for products should be observed.
The publicity brochure should have eye appeal. Surely, a chapter member is skilled in graphic design and layout. One chapter approached the professor of a graphics class at a nearby university, with the result that the brochure was assigned as a class project, and the committee had 20 imaginative designs to choose from. Unfortunately, the students were so carried away with the design that they left very little room for the text.
An identifying logo is helpful. In subsequent years, recipients will remember the logo. A course brochure a few years ago from UCLA used very effective drawings by DaVinci interspersed in the text, to suggest intellectual achievement. This writer has always admired the metal sculptures by Giacometti, and has intended to use "Man Walking" similarly. Other possibilities may come to the reader's mind.
The class handouts, signs and posters are a visual representation of the chapter's in its PD seminar. Good quality artwork will convey an image of pride and professionalism to the student. Shabby materials will subconsciously bias the student to be less responsible to course content.
If the instructor is inexperienced, it might be useful to review Preparing Instructional Objectives by Robert F. Mager. Some of its key points are:
A statement of instructional objectives describes the educational intent. Write a separate statement for each objective; the more statements you have, the better chance you have of making clear your intent. If you give each learner a copy of your objectives, you may not have to do much else. Not all presentation achieve their goals. One recent Joint Computer Conference was criticized in Computerized as follows:
"Perhaps the worst offender, according to some of the large number of people who left during the presentation, was a session carrying the propitious title Software. By the end of the first half-hour, over half of the large audience had left."
"In explaining their reactions to Computerized, several members of the audience pointed out that the speaker was 'obviously uninterested in the paper himself'. Though many of their comments could not be reproduced here, the consensus ran, 'Why did he bother to stand up there on the stage when he couldn't read the paper properly, was totally unfamiliar with a microphone, and appeared to be totally disinterested in both the audience and his own paper'."
Visual aids are important -- they should be used properly. Simple, hand drawn transparencies are fine, if they are neat and uncluttered. One should avoid using standard typed transparencies. Most standard typing does not project legibly.
One expert says that no more than six ideas should be presented on a single visual aid; more than that leads to confusion. A minimum of one minute and probably more should be spent discussing each visual. Show the visual aid and allow a few seconds for the audience to orient to it. Then discuss it so the message will reinforce the medium. If the doctrine of simple visuals is followed, more will be required to deliver a complex diagram. Overhead transparencies permit the use of overlays to build up a complex diagram, calling attention to each feature as it is added.
Transparencies may be colored easily. Water-soluable felt tip pens are good and can be erased. Thus, color highlights can be added to a line-drawn transparency before or during use. Or colored adhesive film can be added to liven a black and white visual aid. Slides are convenient to show but are less flexible than overhead transparencies. They are usually more expensive to produce. Handouts should be provided. It is desirable for the instructor to hand out in advance a student outline and copies of visual aids. This will enable students to take notes right on the appropriate page if they wish. Also, students will not have to divert their attention to re-draw the visuals from the screen. Publish textbooks should generally be discouraged as handouts because of the expense.
Most criteria that holds true for traditional visual aids such as slides and transparencies also holds true of computer based presentations, such as PowerPoint presentations. If projection equipement for computer based presentations is required, testing it well beforehand is essential.
The PD Finance Chairperson should prepare a budget in advance, and a final report after the seminars. The following items should be considered:
1. Speaker fees - Note ACM Honorarium Policy. It may be necessary to guarantee the speaker a portion of his stated fee even if the seminar should be canceled. Speakers should be compensated for time spent in preparing the course. But also not that a highly successful seminar may support another of topical importance but less popularity.
2. Publicity Brochure - This could be the largest single expense, and is certainly the major administrative and distribution problem. There will be charges for artwork printing, folding, stuffing and mailing. Brochures can be mailed bulk rate if the pre-sorted by zip code and if there is enough lead time for unpredictable delivery. Bulk mailing may take only three days, or as much as two weeks. Brochure design can be simple or elaborate -- but it should project an image of quality and professionalism. Given sufficient lead time, advertisements can be placed in trade journals. If details are not firm yet, publish a phone number for further information.
3. Room Rental - Sometimes a college or trade school will donate a room if their students can attend at reduced rates. Predicting required room size is difficult. It is best to preserve some options. Choose a location near traffic arteries and with ample parking. Comfortable chairs and a writing surface are important. Smoking and non-smoking sections may be needed. The room should be well-lighted and offer all required audio/visual facilities.
4. Refreshments - It is important to provide coffee, soft drinks and donuts during the break. This gives people an opportunity to socialize. Some housekeeping arrangements will be required.
5. Certificates - Course completion certificates are a nice touch but are not required. Some sort of evidence of registration or completion may be needed for students who are being sponsored by their company.
6. Refunds - Be aware that some students will request refunds for a variety of reasons. Be prepared with a policy on this.
7. Handouts and Visual Aids - Set a closing date for registrations so you know how many handouts to print. Add 20% for late registrants.
8. Contingency - Throw in a 10% contingency factor to handle unplanned expenses such as mileage, telephone, supplies, refreshments for late registrants.
9. Fee Schedule - Set a step-wise fee schedule so that early registrants pay less than late ones. ACM members pay less than non-members and students pay less than employed people.
10. Attendance - In predicting attendance figures, note that there is much elasticity in the demand curve for training. People and companies are much more willing to commit funds for training in good economic times than in lean years.
11. Billing Students - You will probably want payment to accompany the student's registration form. However, companies sometimes find it difficult to issue a check without an invoice. To accommodate them, you may wish to make provisions for accepting registrations without payment from reputable companies than rendering an invoice. Do not advertise this or most students will want to use it.
12. Late Registration - Despite the step-wise fee schedule, many students will want to register at the door. Be prepared to take in cash, make change, issue receipts and keep records. Confusion can be held to a minimum if procedures and responsibilities of PD Committee members for late registration are worked out and practiced in advance.
On the last day, course evaluations should be completed in class by the students. The PDS committee should hold a final meeting to consider the evaluations, receive a report from each committee chairperson, and consolidate them into a final report. The ACM PDS chairperson would appreciate having a copy of such a report, as would the Local Activities Coordinator at ACM Headquarters.
