The holiday season is always a stressful time of year. At home, you have gift purchases, holiday planning, household cleaning, and travel preparations to do. At work, the last month of the year is stressful either because you are trying to finish everything before everyone disappears on vacation, or because you have limited work. If you are a consultant, limited work means limited income.
Still, the end of the year is a good time to catch up on your personal development. Training professionals are always seeking sources of inspiration and research, but they can sometimes be hard to find. This year, Comprehensive Learning Solutions is giving you the gift of time.
We have sifted through the worldwide web and are sharing with you now our four favorite sites for ideas, information, and training research:
- Grow Learn Connect is the International Finance Corporation’s hub for training professionals from around the world. This free site offers monthly webinars on topics of interest to training professionals, courses on training topics, and even a directory where you can advertise your services or look for training professionals around the globe. (Disclaimer: Comprehensive Learning Solutions has been actively involved in the design, development, and running of this site.)
- Thiagi’s Free Training Games is a page tucked in the recesses of The Thiagi Group’s website. This page contains directions for various types of innovative and adaptable training activities that you can use for ice-breakers, energizers, or reviews.
- Active Reviewing provides free tips, reference material, and activity ideas to make end-of-lesson or end-of-session reviews more meaningful and dynamic. Roger Greenaway is an expert at making debriefs more useful, whether it is for training, lessons learned, or any other time when you would need to debrief.
- ATD Templates contain free, downloadable templates for all phases of the training lifecycle. You might want to use some of these tools as-is; others might give you ideas of questions to ask or items to include in your own products. You must be a member of the Association of Talent Development to access this resource.
Have another favorite site? Please share it with us in the Comments section below!
Comprehensive Learning Solutions wishes you happy holidays, continuous personal development, success, and prosperity in the coming year. We look forward to hearing from you next year!