One of the last steps is to create a short introduction in a workshop slide show to orient participants to the workshop and identify any common problems people run into in the in-workshop activities.
This face-to-face introduction should last only 5-10 minutes, including the introductory slides.
A good guideline is to use more relevant photos or graphics, and less text. Speak to the images on the slides and most of the time have only 1-5 words per slide (cite). See the template below, paying attention to both the slides and the speaker notes below the slides.
You can use the slides from this workshop as a template for your own workshop:
Make your own copy of the slides to edit, by going to the top menu, File -> Make a copy
Presenter slides URL: ___________________
Teaching Tips:
Be Excited! Instructors who are excited about what they are teaching are typically more effective in helping their students to learn than non-excited teachers. An instructor’s excitement can be infectious.
What’s the Big Idea: What is the big idea that will capture the imagination of your learners at the start of your face-to-face session?
Guide on the Side: Lead the workshop as a “Guide on the Side” rather than lecturing like a “Sage on the Stage.” Put as much instructional material as possible into the pre-workshop videos so that the majority of the face-to-face time can be used for hands-on learning.
Workshop Introductions: At the beginning of the workshop, ask participants to introduce themselves (unless it’s a really large group, in which as you can ask them to introduce themselvses in the Zoom chat). It can be helpful knowing the background of participants, as well as what they hope to get out of the workshop so you as an instructor can customize the workshop on the fly to best meet the needs of participants. Here are some sample prompts:
What is your name?
Which faculty or department are you from on campus?
What is one thing they hope to get out of the workshop?
Make workshop activities directly relevant: Encourage participants to use their own data, or customize the in-class activities so that they can tackle one of their own projects as they learn new skills during the workshop (if possible).
Positive Feedback: Give positive feedback to participants as often as you can. This is particularly important for learners who are struggling, or in introductory workshops where learners are still mastering the basics. Positive feedback for novices is a much more effective motivator than critiques or negative feedback.
Trial Runs:
Have someone who is not familiar with the workshop topic work through the pre-class work and in-class activities to make sure that it all makes sense and that there are no obvious errors.
Next, do a trial run workshop from start to finish with a group of in-house novices in order to identify any issues with the content or flow of the workshop in a real-life situation. Don’t forget to solicit feedback on the pre-workshop materials and registration process.
