OBM Specialist 2 Practical Mission Training

Instructors

Allison King, PhD, BCBA; Ryan Curran, MS, BCBA

About the Course

ABA Technologies has published a Level II certificate course in the OBM Specialist series. Our new project-based course, OBM Practical Mission Training, is designed to guide students through the experience of planning their own OBM Project. Students who take this course will receive case-specific guidance and feedback from an experienced OBM Instructor/Coach. Building off concepts learned in the OBM Specialist Certificate, students will gain real-world experience as they go through the process of identifying an important opportunity for a specific organization, determining the appropriate scope for a project, narrowing down appropriate pinpoints, planning out the evaluation of the current state of the organization, communicating the need for change with key stakeholders, conducting the assessment, and identifying all essential components of an intervention package.

The Level I certificate, OBM Specialist Certificate, was designed as a prerequisite to the new Level II certificate, OBM Practical Mission Training. The Level I certificate is designed to train new practitioners in OBM techniques and equip them with the OBM tools needed to make a positive difference in their workplace. The goal is to prepare new practitioners in the essentials of OBM to focus on navigating the real-world challenges they will face as they implement their own OBM project in the Level II certificate. To help with this experience, students enrolled in OBM Practical Mission Training will have open access to the previously completed OBM Specialist Certificate and access to additional tools and methods that are useful when framing and designing an intervention package.

Students will receive feedback and provide feedback to other students enrolled in the course. Working through this experience with other people facing similar challenges can help learners generalize the concepts and approaches used in this course to other opportunities they encounter in the future.  During the course, small cohorts of up to 6 student/team projects at a time will have the opportunity to meet as a group in six optional meetings every three weeks.

Required Work

Students will implement their projects in their workplace while enrolled in OBM Practical Mission Training. To complete the course, students must complete all required work:

• Complete the six modules of self-paced material (reading and videos, approximately 4 hours total of work).
• Submit 6 recorded PPT presentations (10-min each), one for each Project Milestone worksheet (approximately 6 hours of work total)
• Submit feedback on a peer’s Project Milestone presentation. You will do this at least six times; at least one peer feedback for each of the six milestones (approximately 3 hours of work total).

Optional Support

Students will have the opportunity to meet with their OBM coach and cohort peers on six occasions via Zoom meetings. The Zoom meetings will occur every three weeks, beginning on week 1 of the course (see Term Schedule). The zoom meetings will occur on the day/time of the week that you sign up for when registering for the course. The zoom link will be provided in the course when it opens on week 0.

The instructor will dedicate 15-20 minutes to each student/project team in attendance. Optional meetings may range from 45-90 minutes, depending on how many projects are registered in your cohort. There will be no fewer than three projects and no more than six projects per cohort.