Value and Purpose of Workshops

Learning Objectives

Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning. Therefor the workshops will enable the students to:  

• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently

• Evaluate information and its sources critically

• Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base

• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose 

• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally.

What is a workshop?

A workshop is a single, short (although short may mean anything from 45 minutes to two full days) educational program designed to teach or introduce to participants practical skills, techniques, or ideas which they can then use in their work or their daily lives. Most workshops have several features in common:

• They're generally small, usually from 6 to 15 participants, allowing everyone some personal attention and the chance to be heard.

• They're often designed for people who are working together, or working in the same field.

• They're conducted by people who have real experience in the subject under discussion.

• They're often participatory, i.e. participants are active, both in that they influence the direction of the workshop and also in that they have a chance to practice the techniques, skills, etc. that are under discussion.

• They're informal; there's a good deal of discussion in addition to participation, rather than just a teacher presenting material to be absorbed by attentive students.

• They're time limited, often to a single session, although some may involve multiple sessions over a period of time (e.g. once a week for four weeks, or two full-day sessions over a weekend).

• They're self-contained. Although a workshop may end with handouts and suggestions for further reading or study for those who are interested, the presentation is generally meant to stand on its own, unlike a course, which depends on large amounts of reading and other projects (papers, presentations) in addition to classroom activities.

Why would you give a workshop?

Why choose a workshop, when you could use some other method like a study circle, a course, on-the-job training, etc.? Because there are a number of different ways to teach people things, and because people learn things in different ways, a workshop has some advantages (and some disadvantages, too, most notably the lack of time it provides) over these other methods that make it a good choice in certain circumstances.
 

• A workshop provides a way to create an intensive educational experience in a short amount of time, when the time for a more comprehensive effort may not be available. Participants may be working, they may be too far apart to gather together regularly, or may simply be unwilling to commit large amounts of time. A workshop can introduce a new concept, spurring participants to investigate it further on their own, or can demonstrate and encourage the practice of actual methods.

• It's a great way to teach hands-on skills because it offers participants a chance to try out new methods and fail in a safe situation. Failure is often the best teacher, and failure in this instance doesn't carry a cost. At the same time, feedback, from both the presenter and peers in the group, helps a participant understand what she can do to avoid failure in a real situation.

• A workshop is a way for someone to pass on to colleagues ideas and methods that he has developed or finds important. Teaching a graduate course may not be possible, but he may be able to reach large numbers of people by conducting workshops in various situations.

• Especially for people who work together, a workshop can help to create a sense of community or common purpose among its participants.

When would you want to conduct a workshop?

A workshop is valuable in certain circumstances. When do those circumstances arise, and when might you choose to conduct a workshop over other methods of education or training? There are a number of situations in which a workshop would be the best choice: 

• The beginning of something new. If your organization is adopting a new method, or your community initiative is taking a new track, there are often new pieces of information or ways of functioning that people must learn. A workshop, or series of workshops, is a way to introduce these in a short time and get people ready for the change.

• The initial training of staff or volunteers. Workshops are often a good way to train new staff members or volunteers in the philosophy, methods, and functioning of your organization, or in techniques they'll need to do their jobs.

• The in-service or ongoing training of staff or volunteers. Workshops in different issues, techniques, etc. are a good way to keep staff and volunteers fresh and thinking about what they're doing.

• Staff development. Workshops are often used as a way of honing professional skills and learning about new developments in the field.

• The demonstration of a new concept. If someone in an organization has been exposed to a particularly exciting new idea or technique, he may want to conduct a workshop on it for his colleagues, or the organization may want to bring in someone to do so.

• The explanation of something to the public. An organization may conduct a public workshop on its issue, in order to make sure that people are informed about its cause or about what it is doing. An adult literacy program may hold a workshop on illiteracy in its local area, for instance, or a shelter might hold one on the causes and consequences of homelessness.

• The availability of a knowledgeable presenter. If you have particular expertise in a subject, you may be asked to present a workshop to staff or members of another organization, to the public, at a conference, etc. Well-known people in a given field are often invited (and paid) to travel long distances to present workshops. 
  

How do you conduct a workshop?

You can conduct a good workshop by paying attention to all the phases of the process. There are three phases to conducting a workshop: planning, preparation, and implementation. In addition, once you're done, it's important to follow up with participants to get feedback on the workshop, so you can improve it the next time. We'll look at each of these phases separately.

Planning

Once you know what your topic will be, planning a workshop ultimately means figuring out what you want to do to guide participants through the experience, and what you hope they'll learn from it. In order to do that, you have to consider a number of factors:

Consider your topic.

The first element of planning a workshop is to know what you're talking about. No matter how interactive and participatory your workshop will be, you still have to have a good command of what you're presenting. Do your homework, so that you're confident you can deal with most questions and issues that might come up. That doesn't mean you have to know absolutely everything about the topic, but that you have to know a reasonable amount about it, and understand it well enough so that you can help participants fit it into the context of their own jobs and lives.

Consider your audience.

Your audience, the people who will actually be part of the workshop, is probably the most important piece of the puzzle here. Understanding them and their needs will do more than anything else to help you decide what to do and how to do it.

• What do they already know? If you expect most of the participants to be familiar with certain background material, or to have had certain kinds of experiences, that will greatly affect how and to what extent you choose to present material.

• Is this material out of their field? Knowing the context of participants ' experience can help you understand how to present material.

• What is their field? People in some fields may be expected to be more verbal or introspective or outgoing than those in others. You're more likely to find a group of social workers willing to discuss their emotions than you are a group of construction workers, for instance. It also might take more creativity to bring the construction workers to an understanding of why this kind of discussion might be a good idea. It's important to find ways of presenting material that both makes sense to the participants in this particular workshop, and doesn't pull them too far out of their context.

• Do they know one another and/or work together? If so, you can perhaps dispense with introductions (it depends on how well they know one another), and can plan a workshop that speaks to common concerns.

• Will they come in with a particular attitude toward the workshop? They will if you're offering material that flies in the face of what they think they know is true. Are you introducing a new concept or method that conflicts with what they've already been doing or with their previous training? If so, the first thing you have to address may be their hostility or skepticism. On the other hand, they might also be biased in your favor if you're offering what seems to be a solution for a difficult problem.

• Under what circumstances are they attending this workshop? Did they choose it from among several possibilities (as at a conference)? Did they request it? Is it a requirement of their job, or to fulfill requirements for certification, licensure, or some other credential? Is it part of their job (training, retraining, or staff development, for example)? Is it to learn something they absolutely need to know to do their job properly? Each of these reasons implies a different attitude, a different level of interest and commitment, and a different approach on the part of the presenter. 

Consider the workshop size.

If the group is an ideal size for most purposes (about 8-12) you can arrange activities that involve participants as individuals, in small groups (2-4), and in the whole group. If the group is larger than about 15, you'll probably want to split it up for many activities. If it's smaller than 7 or 8, you might be better off having the whole group work together for most of the workshop.

Consider the time available.

Workshops can run from as little as an hour or less to as much as a day or even longer. It 's important that your goals for the workshop match the time available. This means not only planning out your presentation to fill the time appropriately, but also matching the amount of material you'll cover to the time available. Especially if it's all new to participants, they'll need lots of time for clarification, questions, etc. in order to understand it.

A general rule about time is that you should try to block out the time for each part of the workshop in advance. Rehearse different parts to see how long they'll take, or how long you want them to take (e.g., if you're going to ask people to write about something, try it yourself and see how long it takes you). You'll seldom be 100% accurate, but you can come close, and you'll then have an outline of the workshop and a reasonable sense of what you might expect to do in the time you have.

Short workshop: 45-90 minutes. A workshop this short is even shorter than it seems. People may be late by between five and fifteen minutes, and you'll lose more time if you're distributing materials, using equipment, etc. That means you'll have to ruthlessly pare the material you want to present down to what's actually important. Although it's always wise to overprepare (see Preparation, below), the reality is that you seldom get to everything you expect to do. A workshop of this length is probably best used as a means of introducing and discussing a new concept or an issue of concern. It makes little sense to try to teach a specific skill unless it's very limited. If it can be learned in five or ten minutes, and practiced in the same amount of time, it's worth a try. If it's any more complicated than that, you need a longer workshop.

Medium-length workshop: 90 minutes to 3 hours. At this length, a workshop can begin to address ideas and concepts in some depth, and teach some skills. Some considerations about a medium-length workshop:

Vary activities.

This type of workshop is more than long enough for participants to get bored or overwhelmed. Two or three consecutive hours of a talking head can send many people out the door screaming for fresh air. Breaking up the time by involving participants in a number of different kinds of activities is far more conducive to their learning than asking them to sit still and do one thing for the whole time.

Vary the seriousness of the material. Interspersing activities and ideas that are fun or humorous with others that are more serious can not only keep participants awake and on their toes, but can aid learning as well.

Plan a break.

This will speak to the attention-span issue and allow participants a chance to get coffee, go to the bathroom, etc. without disturbing the flow of the workshop. But also be aware that breaks always take longer than planned. Add another five or ten minutes onto the time that you ask people to take? you can be sure that by the time everyone wanders back into the room and settles down, they'll have spent at least that much extra time.

Even a long workshop isn't as long as you think, carefully reflect on the amount of material you can present adequately in this length of time, and on the amount that people can actually absorb. You might use the time to present a relatively small amount of material in a number of different ways, so that participants will leave with a clear understanding of it. Or, you might select what people really need to know about your topic and concentrate on that, trying to give them enough so that, even if they don't fully comprehend it, they will be intrigued enough to follow up on their own and learn more.

Participants need time to talk and connect with one another. The opportunity to get to know others and to exchange ideas is one of the main values of a workshop for many people, and shouldn't be shortchanged.

Long workshop: over 3 hours. A long workshop has some drawbacks, but it does allow you to present material in some depth and to conduct a number of activities. Six concentrated hours of work a day is about as much as most people can deal with. Be sure to allow for plenty of breaks, both because of the need to stretch and use the bathroom, and because of attention span. Some thoughts about long workshops:

• You can go into more detail on specific issues. Here's where you have the opportunity to follow group interest, to explore ideas that are relevant to participants' particular situations, or simply to present ideas in greater depth.

• You can allow longer blocks of time for activities and single topics. It's important, however, to be aware of the need for breaking up long segments of the workshop. You have to be aware if participants' eyes start to glaze over, and be prepared to switch quickly to something else (particularly something active and fun) if that happens.

• You can allow more time to practice new skills and more time for discussion about activities. Perhaps the greatest advantage of a long workshop is that it can allow participants the time to reflect, both individually and with others, which is a crucial part of the learning process.

• You can allot more time to and follow up on participants' questions. (It can be tempting, on the other hand, to get into a conversation with one participant about her interesting question while the rest of the group goes to sleep. Be careful to guard against that tendency.)

• You can present both the context and the specifics of the topic (e.g. characteristics of the HIV-infected population and techniques of community AIDS prevention).

• You can provide or encourage food and drink. It helps keep people alert, sets a relaxed and friendly tone, and sustains interest over the long haul by eliminating the need to think about being hungry or thirsty.

• It's harder to estimate how long workshop segments will take in a long workshop because presenters tend to let activities go on if they're going well (after all, there's plenty of time), and often find that they can't get to much of what they planned. You need to decide whether you want to stick to your plan and, thus, limit activities to approximately the time you planned for them, or to go with the flow, and let things go on longer if participants seem to find them important. Neither of these options is the "right" or "wrong" way: it depends on the needs of the group and the presenter. Checking in with the group is usually a good way to decide which way to go.

Consider the purpose of the workshop. Workshops are given for many purposes, and each implies some specific methods of presentation and other details. Some common purposes and their implications:

• Teaching participants a skill which they then might have to use or will use in the future (a first aid workshop for child care workers, for instance). This kind of workshop will generally be light on talk and heavy on activity. If people are going to use what they're learning, it's obviously important for them to practice it, and that is probably what you'll want the workshop to focus on.

• Giving participants a chance to practice and receive feedback on techniques and concepts they already know. Again, the emphasis here is likely to be on action, on actually doing whatever is under discussion and getting advice and reflection on their performance from the presenter and others in the group.

• Enhancing participants' current knowledge of concepts, techniques, and methods (new research, improvement of techniques, etc.). A new technique will have to be practiced; a fresh take on a familiar concept might involve only discussion.

• Teaching participants a new concept that they can then apply to their work (for instance, a workshop for street outreach workers about how gangs act as substitute families for their members). The presentation here might be more discussion oriented, since people will need to assimilate the new ideas and talk out how they connect to and might affect what they do.

• Familiarizing people with material important for, but not directly connected to, their jobs (Americans with Disabilities Act [ADA] regulations, for instance, or privacy laws). A workshop of this type will probably involve direct presentation of information, with perhaps some problem solving practice and discussion (Person X comes to your organization with this issue; how do you handle it?) It may end up as a question and answer session, partially because laws and regulations are often confusing, and partially because they cause so much anxiety.

• Providing, or helping to provide, a job-related credential for advancement or initial employment, for instance or for some certification or licensure. This category could include anything from CPR instruction to cultural sensitivity training, and thus might include any number of activities or methods of presentation.

• Using a workshop as a way of helping participants feel comfortable with one another and/or their situation. Often used in college orientations or in employment-related team building, workshops of this type usually consist of a large number of rapid-fire activities, often eliciting laughter or cooperative problem solving, or both. Any talk is usually beneficial to understanding the activities and their effects on participants.

• Introducing people to a way of looking at the world, either as an adjunct to their jobs or volunteer situations, or as public education (a workshop on theories of moral development, for example). This kind of workshop can allow for tremendously varied activities: direct teaching, discussion of hypothetical situations, trying to solve moral dilemmas, role playing, etc. In general, the more different ways people can experience the concept, the more likely they are to understand it.

Consider your presentation.

The style of your presentation both your personal style and the actual methods of presentation you employ will do much to determine the effectiveness of your workshop. Some of this will depend on your own personality and experiences, but there are some general guidelines that can be useful:

• Facilitation. Workshop presenters are often referred to as facilitators. A facilitator (from Latin facile, which means "easy") is someone who smooths the way for others. She's not a leader, exactly, or an authority figure, but more of a guide: someone who walks beside you and helps you figure out which way to go. In general, facilitation is more useful in a workshop than "instructing." It's called a workshop because participants generally get a chance to do something, to actually interact on their own terms with what's being presented. A facilitator can help make it easier for them to have that experience, where an instructor might be more apt to tell them about the experience, or to structure it for them.

• Consistency of presentation and the workshop's theme. Your method and style of presentation should, to the largest extent possible, mirror the topic. If you're conducting a workshop on experiential education, for example, it should be experiential, not a lecture. A workshop on ADA regulations should be held in a physically accessible space and demonstrate sensitivity to the concerns of the disabled. A technique being introduced should be practiced in presentation as well as in activities. In a well-presented workshop, participants learn as much from methods and style of presentation as they do from workshop contents.

• Direct involvement of participants. Workshops are much more effective and enjoyable if they involve participants in activities, discussion, and interaction with others, than if they merely shower people with information. There are many opportunities for practicing skills, small and large group discussions, reporting out of discussions, problem solving as individuals and as small and large groups, etc. that will give everyone in the group an opportunity to take an active role.

• Variation of methods and activities. As mentioned several times, varying methods of presentation and activities will help keep people focused, will speak to different participants' learning styles, and will make the workshop more interesting and fun for the presenter as well as for participants. Some possibilities to consider:

• Include some sort of hands-on activity where people can be physically active.

• Include both group and individual activities.

• Activities should be entertaining, or at least involving. Avoid being a "talking head" as much as possible.

• Include various kinds of audio-visual material where appropriate videos, audiotapes, overheads, projected computer-screen images, etc.

• Include innovative ways of presenting material directly: a play, an interactive skit, a song, a cartoon, etc.

• Always include practice of a particular technique or method that's being presented, even if only for a short time, to give participants the chance to see what it feels like.

The more creative you can get here, the better. Activities in which participants work with physical objects are often great learning tools. There are the obvious ones (workshops for elementary math teachers always include lots of "manipulatives," things to demonstrate math concepts with, like ping pong balls or Cuisenaire rods ), but there are an infinite number of options. The author attended a terrific workshop on multiple intelligences that involved small groups designing and building villages out of legos and other blocks. Think as outrageously as you can.

• Things to take home. Make sure participants get print copies of any overheads or slides that contain important information, as well as some summary of the main point(s) of the workshop, and anything else you think might be important. It will help them to remember later what the workshop was about, and will assist them in passing the ideas on to others.

• Reflection time. Reflection is the key to learning. If part of the style of your presentation is to ask participants to reflect on or discuss each activity, you 'll help them learn in two ways: by giving them the time to reflect on the activity and talk about it with others in the group, and by demonstrating how important it is to reflect on what you've done and learned.

• Time to talk to, socialize with, get to know, etc. the other participants. Much of the value of a workshop is in the experience of learning together and forming a community of learners. The shared experience can often lead to professional collaboration and can cement and enrich the learning that goes on.

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