Staff TrainingYou and your team would benefit from learning best practices from other institutions, and you always mean to take the time to think through your processes and whether they meet your current needs. But somehow doing research and developing training materials never makes it to the top of your to-do list.

Does this describe you? If only there was somewhere where you could get a presentation, resources, discussion questions, and activities on a variety of topics for international educators, right? Well, great news! NAFSA has more than 90 on-demand NAFSA e-Learning Seminars available now! These presentations focus on the real-world experiences of international educators as they share practical tips and techniques that worked for them.

For many teams, the NAFSA 2018 Annual Conference & Expo is most important staff training opportunity of the year. And certainly, the NAFSA 2018 Career Center and Speaker Series next month in Philadelphia will have a full lineup of presentations to meet your needs. But you don’t have to wait until May to get started!

Step 1
Check out our list of seminars relevant for anyone working in international education or seminars focused specifically on education abroad; international students and scholars; and international enrollment management. Check the learning objectives for the seminar to see if they match your campus needs. Need help deciding? Here are some recommendations:

Step 2
Purchase the on-demand seminar on NAFSA’s website. For NAFSA members, it is only $69 (non-member $109). You can access the presentation and resources from any device with your NAFSA login and password.

Step 3
Develop your training plan.

Review the handouts and slides beforehand and come up with discussion ideas. The presentations are broken down into different sections with question and answer breaks, so there are several natural breaks to pause the video and discuss as a team. Schedule the training with your team. One option is to do a ”lunch and learn.“ You can download all of the training materials and send them out with the calendar invite.

Step 4
Prepare the conference room. Make sure that you are able to stream video on the computer or projector in the room. Print copies of the handouts for everyone on your team.

Step 5
Pause the recording at the end of each section to give your team a time to ask questions and fill in their responses to the discussion guide. Lead a discussion using the questions in the discussion guide and your training plan.

Compile any action items or ideas that your team thought of during the training. Share the resources guide with your team so they can learn more about the topic.

Congratulations!!! You just led a successful professional development training for your team using NAFSA materials to minimize your research and development time!

Make sure to find us in the Career Center at NAFSA 2018 and let us know how these materials worked for your training needs and how they helped prepare you and your staff for the international education event of the year!


Angelyn Pinter is associate director of professional learning services at NAFSA: Association of International Educators.