Project Background: I was the training administrator for the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Global Intellectual Property Academy (GIPA), which was housed in the Office of Policy and International Affairs (OPIA). I was the only training professional in OPIA and had to rely on fifty attorneys as the subject matter experts. The OPIA attorneys gave training presentations to the public, legal groups, and international audiences. The Advanced Presentations Training (APT) program aimed to improve the attorneys’ delivery style and ability to create engaging PowerPoint presentations. I used the word “advanced” to emphasize the refined presentation techniques. 
Course Features: Each session was twenty minutes and had a mixture of short lectures, group activities, and hands-on experiential practice. The sessions were given as a stand-alone brown bag event, followed by a brief audience discussion. Alternatively, I would combine two or three sessions with one or two thirty-minute PowerPoint workshops. In the PowerPoint workshop, we would take a volunteer’s PowerPoint and improve it as a group.
Why Does This Course Work: The sessions were built on Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction with a particular emphasis on connecting knowledge from the sessions to each other. Adult learners are more motivated by giving examples from their experiences, which I encouraged and incorporated into the sessions. I designed the session activities around the Kolb Experiential Learning Cycle so the participants could actively experiment with the concepts and then reflect upon what they learned.
My Role: I created the session designs, assembled the activities, delivered the content, and facilitated the sessions and workshops. I presented APT around twenty times in my time at GIPA.