Break free from conventional faculty development! Dive into TOPkit, an enchanting escape room that meets you where you are and propels you forward. Uncover new horizons in this magical, gamified journey, where the thrill of breaking out is the exhilarating course design challenge you have been dreaming of!

Struggling with your faculty development training? Wondering where to start? Where to go next? Where can you find new avenues to explore? TOPkit is your one-stop shop for all your faculty development and instructional design needs. Go beyond the ordinary in this interactive workshop designed to place you in the middle of the action. Explore different virtual destinations to find hidden codes and clues to escape! TOPkit is organized into sections for planning, developing, and evaluating. Additionally, TOPkit is home to a plethora of resources. The Faculty Development Decision Guide is a comprehensive, interactive tool designed to assist all institutions in evaluating their online faculty development needs. Sample courses, templates, tools, and techniques are highlighted in the developing section. Evaluation offers checklists, rubrics, tips, and guidance. Best of all, we feature a monthly instructional designer-focused digest and a faculty dilemma advice column called “Ask ADDIE” which keeps the community involved and informed. The TOPkit annual Workshop and Co-Labs provide opportunities for instructional designers to publish, host, and even promote their own events. During this Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) event, participants will complete a virtual escape room in ThingLink to learn about TOPkit by engaging in a series of interactive and educational challenges. Here is how it works: -Access the Escape Room: Participants receive a QR code to the ThingLink escape room and access the starting scene, themed by destination. We will start in Orlando, Florida and explore fabulous destinations where contributors to the TOPkit community reside including New York, Ireland, Curaçao, California, and Jamaica! -Interactive Tags: Each scene contains interactive tags that participants can click on. These tags embed several types of media such as text, images, videos, and links, which provide instructions, clues, and educational content about TOPkit. -Complete Challenges: Participants are tasked with solving puzzles or completing challenges in each room. For example, they might watch an embedded video about TOPkit, answer quiz questions, or find specific information on the TOPkit website. -Navigate Between Destinations: Successful completion of challenges reveals clues needed to unlock navigation tags that lead to the next room or scene. This sequential progression ensures that participants engage with all content in the intended order. -Collaborate: Tasks will require collaboration in groups. This encourages teamwork and deeper engagement with the material. -Final Escape: In the last destination, participants face a comprehensive challenge covering all the information they have learned. Correctly completing this final task allows them to “escape”! Key Takeaways -Utilize TOPkit’s resources on planning, developing, and evaluating for effective online faculty development. -Review a detailed Faculty Development Decision guide to assess and create effective online faculty development programs tailored to institutional needs. -Explore TOPkit sample courses, tools, and techniques that can be directly applied to your own development programs. -Discuss the use of checklists, rubrics, tips, and guidance provided by TOPkit to evaluate and improve your faculty development initiatives. Continue the conversation: -Engage with an active Community of Practice, benefiting from monthly digests focused on instructional design and the "Ask ADDIE" advice column for real-world solutions. -Discover opportunities to publish, host, and promote your own events, fostering professional growth and collaboration. -Learn by using gamified and augmented reality experiences for enhancing faculty development. Interactivity -Participants will be immersed in a dynamic escape room scenario, where each clue is a stepping stone to the next destination. This hands-on approach ensures active engagement as attendees use their devices to interact with game elements. The session's gamified structure promotes collaboration, problem-solving, and real-time application of instructional design principles, making the learning process both fun and impactful. -Escape Room will utilize interactive media and augmented reality (via Thinglink) as well as clues provided throughout the session -BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) to fully participate in the experience and real-time problem-solving and collaboration with peers. -Brainstorming to find the answers to escape to the next destination while simultaneously learning about what TOPkit has to offer -Live Q & A session Features include: -Faculty Development Decision Guide -Sample Faculty Development Course -TOPkit Digest Monthly Tips -Ask ADDIE Faculty Dilemma Advice Column Three Literature References: -Palkowitsch-Kühl, J., & Müller, K. (2020). Virtual and Augmented Reality and Mobile Technologies in Religious Education. Transforming Teacher Education with Mobile Technologies, 131. -Sailer, M., & Homner, L. (2020). The gamification of learning: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 32(1), 77-112. -de Carvalho-Filho, M. A., Tio, R. A., & Steinert, Y. (2020). Twelve tips for implementing a community of practice for faculty development. Medical teacher, 42(2), 143-149.