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The purpose of the following information is to assist ICAA instructors in preparing and instructing ICAA seminars.
The ICAA offers three sessions of seminars each year. The Spring Program is planned in January and runs in May and June. Fall and Winter Programs are planned in March and April and run September to March of the next year. During the program planning stage, ICAA Member Education staff will contact all instructors that are included in the program via e-mail to confirm their participation. Once you are confirmed to instruct, we request that you send in a short (less than 200 words) bio of yourself to be included on the website.
Instructor Contracts are prepared and sent in July. Instructors are expected to sign and return the contracts by the end of July.
As soon as the ICAA has a final version of the materials, you will be sent a final copy of the materials for review and to prepare for the seminar. You will receive the participant’s binder, instructor notes and PowerPoint presentation a few weeks prior to the seminar you are instructing. After you receive the materials, we recommend that you read through the materials in detail and consider what situations from your work you can use to help illustrate the material with anecdotal examples. This adds tremendous value for the participants. We also recommend that you run the PowerPoint Presentation prior to the seminar to ensure that it works on the laptop that you will be using for the seminar. Two weeks prior to the seminar, you will receive a Participant list to assist in preparing so that you can customize the presentation to the expected audience. Please contact the ICAA if you have any questions, concerns or have not received your materials a month prior to the seminar start date.
In order to prepare for all of the seminars that are presented in each program, we have a planning system that ensures that all details are completed prior to the start of each seminar.
Two weeks prior to the seminar, the ICAA determines whether a seminar will go ahead as planned or if we will cancel due to low enrollment.
Two weeks prior to a seminar, you will receive a function sheet from the Program Planning Administrator. The Function Sheet indicates how the room will be set up, the expected number of attendees, AV requirements and the seminar details such as location and room name. Once you have received this information, please ensure that the classroom layout is consistent with your instructions previously submitted. Last-minute changes to the classroom layout cannot be accommodated. If you require a change to the setup of any of the previously mentioned items, you can e-mail the Member Education Administrator who will arrange the changes. Please note that we require the changes as soon as possible and cannot make changes within 3 days of the seminar.
On the day of the seminar, we ask that the instructor arrives 30 minutes prior to the start of a seminar. This will give you adequate time to get your computer started and linked up to the projector.
While all our seminars include slides as instructional tools, they should be used efficiently. The Instructor is the key to a successful seminar. The documentation and learning tools at your disposal only enhance the quality of our program. For each seminar, the ICAA automatically provides an LCD projector, screen, flip chart and easel. Instructors are required to provide their own laptop. Please revise the Function Sheet if you have other AV requirements.
If you have other requirements for your seminar or you have questions, please contact the Program Planning Coordinator or the Program Planning Administrator in Member Education.
Please arrive 30 minutes prior to the start time for the seminar to ensure that you have sufficient time to get your computer set up and connected to the projector. When you arrive at the facility, please check in with the on-site person (unless you are in a smaller centre such as Grande Prairie or Lethbridge) so that they know that you have arrived and can assist you if required. If you have difficulty with your laptop or projector, the on-site do not have training, however, our Audio Visual contractor is available if you are having difficulty. In the worst case scenario that you can’t get the projector working right away, don’t panic. The participants all have copies of the slides, so they can use those until you are able to get the projector working. There will be someone at registration from the ICAA to sign in participants as they arrive and to hand out course materials.
At the beginning of the seminar, please take 5 to 10 minutes to go over a few details about the facility and the expectations for the day. For instance, let participants know where the nearest washrooms are and give participants an idea as to the schedule for the day, such as timing of the breaks and lunch, as well as the material to be covered. If you have a small group, you may wish to ask participants to introduce themselves and say where they are working. For larger groups, you may wish to ask the group what they are looking to get out of the course to give you an idea as to their goals. You can jot these down on the flip chart. During the seminar, try to encourage as many questions as possible. Often participants learn as much from the questions asked as from the materials provided. Don’t let any one participant dominate the questions. Also, if you are getting side tracked into a long discussion that is not particularly relevant to the rest of the group, let the interested individual know that you will be happy to continue the discussion at a break.
Seminars in major cities (Edmonton and Calgary) usually have ICAA personnel on-site to assist you as well as ensure that the room has been set up correctly, to check registrants in and to distribute material. The onsite staff arrives one hour prior to the start of the seminar and they stay around until all participants have arrived or 30 minutes after the seminar starts. If you have any questions the day of the seminar, the onsite staff are there to assist you but they do not have access to our database and thus can not resolve registration issues onsite. In smaller centers, often the Instructor welcomes participants. The seminar material will be in the classroom upon your arrival. Please greet participants when they arrive and have them sign in on the class list that was emailed to you by Member Education. Seminar material should ONLY be given to those participants on the class list.
If a registrant has not arrived when the onsite staff leaves for the day, then the onsite staff completes a Late Arrival Form (Confirmation of Attendance Form) that the participant must sign to receive credit for the CPD Hours. Can you please collect these forms and put them in the envelope along with the evaluations?
Despite all the efforts, controlling classroom temperature is very difficult. If you believe, or if a participant informs you, that the classroom temperature is uncomfortable, please inform the hotel’s banquet staff who will then take the necessary action.
For a half-day seminar, a light snack with beverages is served in both the morning and afternoon seminars. All beverages are refreshed at the morning and afternoon breaks. For a full-day seminar, a light breakfast is served, with coffee, tea and juice. Lunch is usually served in a separate room and the onsite staff will let you know in the morning where lunch will be served. All beverages are refreshed at the morning and afternoon breaks. For a two-day seminar, a light breakfast is served, with coffee, tea and juice each day. Lunch is usually served in a separate room and the onsite staff will let you know in the morning where lunch will be served. All beverages are refreshed at the morning and afternoon breaks.
The Participant Evaluation form is included in the seminar material. Please remind participants to complete and at the end of the seminar, we ask that you collect the evaluation forms and put them into the supplied envelope and mail them back to the ICAA. The envelope has been pre-addressed and postage has been paid. Please invite participants to complete the evaluation form included in the seminar material. Completed evaluations are returned to the ICAA either through depositing in the evaluation box (where on-site personnel will collect), if no evaluation box, then a postage paid envelope addressed to the ICAA will be available and the Instructor is required to collect & deposit in envelope, and mail back to the ICAA.
As noted in your contract, please complete and return your Instructor Evaluation form with your invoice for the preparation fees of your seminar. The instructor evaluations are a useful tool to update and revise the seminar materials to keep the information current and relevant.
The following are the general seminar schedule, including breaks:
Breakfast Seminars: Breakfast 7:30 am Start 8:00 am End 10:00 am
Lunch Seminars: Lunch 12:30 am Start 1:00 pm End 3:00 pm
Half-Day Seminars: Morning: Start 8:30 am Break 10:00 am – 10:15 am End Noon
Afternoon: Start 1:00 pm Break 2:30 pm – 2:45 pm End 4:30 pm
Full-Day Seminars: Start 8:30 am Break 10:00 - 10:15 am Lunch 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm (the lunch break should not exceed 60 minutes) Break 2:30 – 2:45 pm End 4:30 pm
Two-Day Seminars: Day 1: Start 8:30 am Break 10:00 - 10:15 am Lunch 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm (the lunch break should not exceed 60 minutes) Break 2:30 – 2:45 pm End 4:30 pm
Day 2: Start 8:30 am Break 10:00 - 10:15 am Lunch 12:00 noon – 1:00 pm (the lunch break should not exceed 60 minutes) Break 2:30 – 2:45 pm End 4:30 pm
In order to provide adequate time to prepare, the participant notes, instructor notes, PowerPoint presentation and case studies are sent to you as soon as available. Please review your package to ensure it includes everything you need (e.g. complete documentation and CD with PowerPoint presentation). After you receive the materials, we recommend that you read through the materials in detail and consider what situations from your work you can use to help illustrate the material with anecdotal examples. This adds tremendous value for the participants. We also recommend that you run the PowerPoint Presentation prior to the seminar to ensure that it works on the laptop that you will be using for the seminar. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Member Education.
If you want to add material to your presentation it must first be approved by the ICAA. If you gain approval for additional material please provide us the electronic files a minimum of 30 days prior to the seminar start date so that it can be included in the Participant Notes and sent to the location where the session will be given as no photocopies can be made on site.
The ICAA prepares all Participant Materials and ships them to the facility 5 days prior to the seminar start date. If the materials are less than X pages, it is bound and if there are greater than X pages, a binder will be sent in a separate box. The On-Site Administrator will distribute the materials as the Participants check in at the reception desk. Each Participant is responsible for assembling their materials if required. If you arrive and there isn’t an On-site Administrator (only in the Smaller Centers), please distribute the materials to each of the participants. If the material has not arrived, please start the seminar, and the On-Site Administrator will work with the Program Planning Administrator to track the materials. Once the materials are found, the On-Site Administrator will distribute the materials to the participants.
Some seminars are drafted well before the sessions are given, but participants expect to have the latest updated information. You can supplement verbally for minor updates. In the case of Income Tax Update, where there is new information such as the Budget Summary, your verbal update will be more extensive but if time is too short for distribution of a paper copy, it can be sent by email to the attendees if you notify Member Education.
The primary objective of the ICAA is to provide participants with the best possible documentation for all their continuing professional development activities. The seminar material is reviewed and subject to quality control before it is sent to you.
When you are preparing for the seminar, and when you are presenting, please make notes on suggestions for improvements. Please note typing, calculation and/or spelling errors, unclear sentences, incorrect references or make other relevant comments and return them to us. Photocopies of annotated pages are very useful and valuable to us (and the Authors) so that the necessary corrections can be made during our annual updating of the course. If you discover during your preparation serious errors or omissions in the course material, please contact the ICAA, as soon as possible. If we receive the corrections during the year, we will either print an addendum or ask that you mention them directly to participants.
When instructing an ICAA seminar, you can expect participants from a diverse group. Some are in public practice, some are in industry, and others work for not for profit organizations. Not all participants are CAs, so keep that in mind when addressing your group. Most participants are designated accountants, whether CAs, CMAs or CGAs. As much as the seminar descriptions are intended to help individuals choose an appropriate course, there could be some participants who have chosen a course that may not be the best fit for their field of practice. It can be difficult for participants to get an entire day or two days free to attend a seminar. Many participants will be therefore have to leave occasionally to take a call. However, encourage everyone to turn their phones/PDAs off, or at least to silence them. Don’t be offended if some participants spend the whole day reading and writing e-mails on their PDA’s.