WebJunction hosted a great and informative webinar on Thurs., Feb. 7th about staff professional development called Self-Directed Achievement - if you give library staff an hour, about a small library's attempt to empower staff to take learning and goal-setting into their own hands by utilizing an hour of their time each week to meet a small, specific goal (ie: "I will learn more about Facebook by going through 1 beginning tutorial") and then sharing the results with a supervisor in a weekly 15-minute meeting. The presenters emphasized that SDA is more of a culture of lifelong learning than a "program." They saw it really change the way their staff interacted with patrons by increasing their own knowledge (ie: before SDA, someone did not know how to load an e-book on an e-reader and felt powerless to help a patron seeking assistance for e-book downloading; after setting a goal to learn how to download a book on a Kindle, staff member felt more empowered to help library patrons perform this task). It also fostered an environment where staff were learning and sharing with each other new things they had learned, thus prompting a kind of domino effect where knowledge spread like wildfire.
After viewing this presentation, I definitely see a use for SDA in my own personal work life. Maybe you will, too?
If anyone wishes to view this presentation, it has been archived here. The PowerPoint slides and related resources are also available on that page.
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