Posted 2-18-04

On Monday, February 9, 2004, the MI Plan training team leaders from the Traverse Bay Area ISD, Kalamazoo RESA, and the Genesee ISD met to discuss each of their MI Plan training sessions. The following are recommendations for anyone who attended these first training sessions and is preparing to conduct MI Plan training for other ISD or local district staff members:

• Do not try to train a large group of people with only one trainer.   If you attended one of these first three training sessions by yourself — or even with one other person from your ISD or LEA — it is strongly recommended that you train at least one to two other people from your ISD or LEA before you begin training others at your ISD or LEA.   Our training team leaders have recommended a training team of at least two to four people for any group training; at least one person can conduct training, while other trainers are troubleshooting at computer stations during the sessions.  Depending on the size of your training sessions, you may want to have four to six people on your training teams.
• Plan to conduct your MI Plan training at your ISD or LEA in several sessions over the next several months.  Do not try to conduct a comprehensive training in a one-day session, especially if your audience is not familiar with the school improvement process or may not have the technical expertise to easily navigate through a school improvement template.   It is advised that you conduct MI Plan training in blocks of about three hours on separate days with time in between for getting acquainted with the Web site. Altogether, training may take the equivalent of two full days.  For your first MI Plan session, you may want to focus on an "overview" of the school improvement process with special emphasis on readiness to benefit.  For your second session, you may want to explain how to navigate the tool, complete the administrative function, investigate the offline materials, and begin steps 1 and 2.  The next two sessions can focus on the remaining steps.  Of course, these are simply suggestions rather than prescriptions.  Your pace will depend on the needs of your trainees.
• If you attended one of these first three training sessions (or you are one of the first fifty "core" trainers), you received a UserID and password for your own MI Plan test site.  It is recommended that you use the "test" UserID and password that was assigned to you for any future training sessions at your ISD or LEA.   If you are training others who do not have a MI Plan UserID and password (e.g., local and ISD staff members), you can add these trainees as users for your sessions.   It is suggested that you delete any information that was added to your test site before you begin training another group.  As the manager for your test site, you have the flexibility to manage your MI Plan UserID and password as you need (which includes adding users).

Other suggestions are welcome.  Please contact the DIT Education Help Desk at 517.335.0505 or Help-Desk@michigan.gov.