Planning Ahead: short term

George has begun his journey in his chosen Path of Leadership Development.

He has now sought advice from his Personal Learning Network and gathered some really useful resources. His plan is to ‘map’ out his Path completion over the next few months and these are the tools he has chosen to help with that!

First a really neat set of short videos for the nuts and bolts of working in Base Camp – produced by Roger Fung at http://tipathways.com/

Second this dynamic document that shows him all the projects in his Path at a glance.

http://pathwaysguide.com/pathways_bypath.htm

Third this useful spreadsheet template for tracking his own progress.

Path Planner Template V2

As George is a member of multiple clubs he will need to schedule his speeches strategically with each of his VP Education officers.  As an advanced Toastmaster he is also planning to share his Level Completions with each of his clubs and therefore takes that into consideration when requesting speeches for meetings at his clubs over the next few months.

Action Stations: Base Camp

First things first, George will open his Leadership Development Path in the Transcript at Base Camp. For him this is like navigating to his own personal learning space online and accessing his online lessons, resources and evaluation forms. He already knows that Level 1 contains 3 projects with 4 speeches required: Icebreaker, Evaluation and Feedback, and Researching and Presenting. His chosen ‘theme’ for this level will be Preparing to Lead and he aims to prepare his four speeches to fit that theme and present them using a Meal Menu metaphor.

Here’s George’s plan for Level One: Preparing to Lead

George learns fast that he will need to work through the online lessons in Level 1 sequentially and that it will be important to complete the self-assessment AFTER module in each project. It is tempting to just click through the modules in each lesson, without much attention to content, to get to the end! However, he is focused on improving his learning about Preparing to Lead and sets aside some time each week to complete each lesson and structure each speech. 

He also knows that he will need to provide the Evaluation form for each of these speeches at his clubs and he downloads them from the Tutorials and Resources library at Base Camp.

There is a lot that he can do in planning ahead.

Planning Ahead: mid term

During the month, George frequently taps into his Personal Learning Network in social media where he is surrounded by other Toastmasters also working in Pathways. He knows now that he can get instant help from members of the Pathways Discussion Forum by posting his queries and challenges each week. He would have preferred to have access to a closed forum somewhere, focused on his Path, and he wonders if this would be a ‘project’ he could work on for one of the Electives.

Purpose: The purpose of this project is to apply your understanding of social media to enhance an established or new social media presence.

George collects a brief overview of the Elective Building a Social Media Presence from the Pathways Paths and Projects Catalog and adds that to his plans for Level 4.

This project fits very well with his plans to build his own social media presence and that of his club.

At Level 3 George realizes that the Elective project Make Connections through Networking will be valuable in preparing for the Elective project Building a Social Media Presence and he adds that to his plans too. One other Elective at Level 3 appeals to him at this stage and he adds Connect with Storytelling.

He finds that project planning empowers and helps him to ‘map’ out his speeches in keeping with his themes. The process reminds him of his previous journeys through the Competent Communicator and Advanced Communication manuals whilst his focus was on better communication skills.

Planning Ahead: long term

Next, George searches for information about the requirements at Level 5 of Leadership Development using the Pathways and Paths Catalog.

He is keen to work on Managing Successful Events for his club leadership training and sees that is a required project at Level 5. The final project to complete his Leadership Development Path is an Elective and he chooses Leading in Your Volunteer Organisation. This will fit in well with his decision to be nominated for the role of VP Education in one of his clubs – a perfect final destination for this Path.

George has also recently learned, from a post in social media recently, that there is to be a new Advanced Leadership Path – currently under development and will be ready for 2019 – an ideal next step for him.