Special Topics

The Special Topics Series is an annually planned pair of seminars. The seminar topics are chosen collectively by KCPDC board members based on identified training needs from each member institution. Employees participating in the seminars can learn new skills, build relationships and share ideas with colleagues from other institutions, having some fun in the process.

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Introduction to Strengths Finder

Date & Time: Sep. 14, 2010, 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location: JCCC, Regnier Center, Room 101 D

Presenter: Sondra Cave

Description: Do you have the opportunity to do what you do best every day? Chances are you don't. All too often, our natural talents go untapped. From the cradle to the cubicle, we devote more time to fixing our shortcomings than to developing our strengths.

This session is open to participants NEW to Strengths – those who have NOT YET taken the Strengths assessment. This interactive course will provide participants with clear knowledge and understanding of the strengths philosophy, concepts and mission. Using the Clifton StrengthsFinder© (CSF), each participant will gain in-depth knowledge about his or her personal strengths. Each participant will also have opportunity to interact with others as they discover more about each of the 34 strengths themes identified by the CSF. Guaranteed toÊchange the way you look at yourself – and the world around you – forever.

Shortly after registering, participants will receive a code which will provide access to the Strengths assessment. Participants should take the assessment prior to the session, print their report and bring it to the session.

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Making the Most of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook

Dates & Times:
Sep. 28, 2010 – 8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Oct. 12, 2010 – 12:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Locations:
Sep. 28: JCCC, Regnier Center, Room 253
Oct. 12: JCCC, Regnier Center, Room 238

Presenter: Keith Krieger

Description: In this session, we'll focus on leveraging the applications we use daily. While we know the basics, our work is enhanced when we know how to use those programs efficiently and effectively.

We'll begin with examining shortcuts for Word, including navigation, combining documents, creating and using templates, and using styles to quickly and easily format documents. We'll also see methods to quickly select text for editing and formatting, as well as shortcuts for moving text around and between documents. We'll conclude with seeing how to use Word to generate citations and bibliographies in APA and MLA formats.

We'll continue with PowerPoint. We'll examine how to create presentations, and then how to use master views to quickly modify the entire presentation. Along the way, we'll discuss best practices for presentations that engage the audience without resorting to transitions and over-used animation.

For Excel, we'll see how to best create and format spreadsheets for easy data entry. We'll then examine how to quickly create charts to graphically illustrate the data for our audience. As we use the tools in Excel, we'll see how to use conditional formatting to quickly highlight data without manually formatting cells. We'll also take a look at Pivot Tables as a method to quickly analyze data sets.

We work with email daily, but we're rarely given strategies for dealing with the volume of email we receive. In this section, we'll see how to take advantage of Outlook's email tools to manage the inbox. We'll see how rules are built to automatically handle incoming mail, as well as best practices on handling appointments and tasks that arrive in our inboxes.

For each these Microsoft programs, we'll leverage the use of shortcuts, keyboard accelerators, and other intermediate to advanced tips to make Office work for you.

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Communication - Dealing with Difficult Students

Date & Time: Nov. 10, 2010 – 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location: MCC-BTC Conference Annex-room 104A

Presenters: Shelli Allen and Lisa Minis

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StrengthsFinder II

Date & Time: Jan. 25, 2011 – 12:30 – 4:30 p.m.

Location: DeVry

Presenter: Sondra Cave

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Tech II

Date & Time: Feb. 22, 2011 – To be determined

Location: KCKCC

Presenter: To be announced

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Presentation Skills

Date & Time: Mar. 08, 2011 – 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location: MCC-BTC, Conference Annex, Room 104A

Presenter: Jason Brensdal

Description: The ability to captivate and motivate audiences has become even more critical for presenters in our academic world that has many other things competing for our listeners' attention. This session has been designed for today's busy college professional who needs to create and deliver presentations that a powerful impact on their audiences. This highly interactive session will give participants the tools to deliver dynamic presentations that build and maintain a strong rapport and a positive listening environment while enhancing credibility and motivating listeners to action.

What you will learn:

• Describe the process for becoming a dynamic presenter
• Start and end a presentation with a powerful impact
• Deliver dynamic presentations with your voice and body language
• Effectively apply the psychology of persuasion
• Use compelling evidence and presentation aids such as PowerPoint
• Practice, rehearse, present, and evaluate dynamic presentations
• Consider the impact of audience diversity in developing and delivering a dynamic presentation

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Communication Issues - Customer Service

Date & Time: Apr. 12, 2011 – 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Location: UMKC, Administrative Center, Plaza Room

Presenter: Valerie Burke