Photo By: British Council Russia on Flickr

How to design a question friendly workshop PART 2

By: Maca T.

Continuing from the first part that’s here

Define the workshop objectives

As said before, the workshop planning should start some time before the event; it requires organization and creativity. At this part you should be starting to think what are the objectives of the workshop going to be about, give the attendees a reason to be there; many workshops are a waste of time because they don’t have clear goals.

Who is the event directed to, who will attend

Another key part of the organization of your event will be deciding who is going to come to this event. So, when planning on how to teach a particular skill, one must understand the audience’s needs regarding their learning pace or take into account the language they speak. The more tailored your workshop is to your audience, the more effective it will be.

Create an agenda and assign an estimated length of time to each item

After deciding your primary objective and who will attend, you can begin to develop an outline of how you will accomplish the workshop’s goal. Start by creating a list of key points to discuss; then you can break down larger points into details that you would like to communicate to your attendees. Also, list which activities and group discussion will take time within your workshop. Decide how much time you will assign to them (consider the size of the group).

Encourage the discussion by setting up the room

It’s always good to help your audience discuss the topic, not only by providing activities but also the space should match the situation. Arrange the chairs in a semi-circle to enable conversation and post the ground rules on a board or wall where all participants can see them.

Add interactive activities into the event

Your audience’s engagement is key to your event; help them stay connected by adding activities or games which can increase engagement and participation. Remember if you stand up and talk for three hours, you’re just giving a lecture. Mix up different types of people in each group, for example encourage people to interact with other departments, then they can learn to look at things from different perspectives.

Incorporate a question and answer part

Adding this part after every group exercise or after every time some new skill is being taught is very important; its implicit for the attendees to expose their questions or comments and it will encourage them to talks and participate more.