• General Information
• Who is involved?
• Professional Development Program
• What do we expect from you?

Besides technical skills, social and group skills are vital now and in the future. Engineers do not function on their own, as soloists; instead, they work together in design groups, participate in meetings, communicate about their findings and talk with clients. That is why professional development (PD) is so important. PD is about presenting, conversation skills and group skills and moreover about your capability to reflect on yourself and others. PD helps you to get a grip on your own communicative development. PD aims at a learning process, insight, trial and error, in short changes in a very complex field, namely you. Being a toio means two years of education, an opportunity to make mistakes, try again and recognize your own strong points and learning points.

The objective of the PD program is to deepen and broaden your knowledge as well as your performance in social and communication skills. PD is of great importance within the two-year full time TOIO-programs.

The PD program is spread out over the first year and works on the following skills:

• Presentations (ability to express ideas in a comprehensible and convincing manner in front of a group –e.g. experts, superiors, laymen-)
• Two-way conversations (including basic communication skills such as listening, questioning and summarizing, negotiating options and resolving conflicts)
• Group functioning (including functioning in various roles such as chairperson, secretary, etc. and also structuring meetings and decision making)
• Self Reflection (Being able to think about your own functioning is a crucial skill in PD.)

• During PD you will be in charge of your own learning process. Apart from your fellow Toio’s, who will be examples to learn from and important sources of feedback, the following persons are involved:
• PD-coaches. Your PD coach will help you to improve your communicative skills by giving feedback and organizing training sessions. During individual meetings with your coach, the learning goals will be established and arrangements made for improvement.
• Coordinator. As well as the PD coach your coordinator also pays attention to your skills and gives you feedback. The PD coach and the coordinator inform each other about the progress of individual TOIO's.

1. Introduction meeting
Objective:

• Get acquainted with your PD coach and with the way in which PD is organized.
• Prepare yourself for the Workshop “self-assessment” (fill in a questionnaire)

Duration: 1 hour

2. Workshops
a. “Intercultural communication and cooperation”
Objective: Develop awareness for cultural differences and group dynamics to work successfully across cultures in a Dutch academic context.

Duration: 1 full day

b. Self-assessment
Objectives: 

• Achieving individual learning goals concerning social, communicative, group and presentation skills
• Gaining insight into the following questions: What am I capable of? / What do I want? / What do I want to develop?

Duration: 2 full days

c. Conversation and meeting skills
Objective:

• to present the basic theory concerning communication and meeting skills.
• bring the theory into practice

Duration: 1 full day

3. Report “strong points and learning points”
Each Twaio is expected to write an individual report concerning your own strong points and learning points based on the experiences in the workshops. In this report you also describe which learning points you would like to improve and how you want to establish that.

Objective: To reflect on yourself.

Make use of the feedback you have received and what you’ve seen and heard from others.

Deadline: 1 week after the last workshop. You have to send the report to your PD coach!

4. Individual meeting with your pd-coach
After you have written the report, an individual meeting with your coach will take place. During that personal interview the learning goals will be defined, based on the observations/experiences during the workshops and your own report.

Objective:

• reflect on yourself and receive feedback
• make a plan of work

Deadline: within a month after the final workshop

5. Learning by doing and self-reflection
Objective:

• To work on your learning points by practicing during courses, group work and PD sessions 
• To learn how to give, ask and receive feedback.

Skills in practice
During courses and group work you will practice skills like meeting techniques, decision making, communication skills, project planning etc. You can ask your PD coach to attend this meetings, so he/she can give you feedback. Furthermore in extra PD sessions attention will be paid to other areas in which you wish to improve your skills. For example subjects as presentation skills, conflict handling, decision making, etc. can be given attention to, if possible in response to a Twaio’s request.

Duration: Every 3 weeks, during 1 year.

6. Second report “strong points and learning points”
Each Toio is expected to write a second individual report concerning your own strong points and learning points based on the experiences within PD until now. In this report you describe your own development and define new learning points.

Objective: To reflect on yourself.

Make use of the feedback you have received and what you’ve seen and heard from others.

Deadline: The pd-coach will let you know during the year when you are expected to send in your report.

7. Group conversation
The PD coach will invite you to attend a group conversation with 4 of your colleagues. During this conversation the following things will be discussed:

• What you have established so far
• What you would like to improve in the near future and the way you are going to do this

The group members are free to give feedback.

8. Final report “strong points and learning points”
In this report you have to describe how you have improved yourself in the last year and what you would like to improve in the future. Also describe which learning points you want to tackle during your final project.

9. Final presentation
At the end of the PD year each Toio is expected to give a final presentation about his/her professional development, based on your final report “strong points and learning points”.

10. End
When you actively participated in all the aspects of the PD programme, you end PD with your final presentation. You receive a certificate which shows you successfully participated in PD.

During PD you will be in charge of your own learning process. We expect you to work on yourself, define learning points, make a plan of work and cooperate in an active way during PD sessions.

So we expect you to:

• finish assignments on time;
• cooperate actively within PD sessions;
• make use of your PD coach ( ask them to attend meetings or presentations for example);
• reflect on yourself and be open to feedback