Tools for Teaching Navigation
Facilitation Skills: The Art of Group Facilitation
Teaching and Presentation Skills: Keep these techniques in mind
Tips for Programs
Workshops
This page provides tips for organizing workshops for specific audiences:
For tips on how to develop effective practices for specific audiences, see the Changing Public Behavior self-study modules.
Research and findings about Best Education Practices for specific audiences is also available on the Water Outreach website.
Introduction
In the workshop world, you will meet vastly different kinds of people. They may range from student leaders to special interest audiences. How you approach each of these audiences may differ, but the foundation of the approach can stay relatively the same. In this section, we describe workshop considerations in general and then for different audiences: General Public, Special Interest Audiences, Student Leaders, and Teachers/Home Schoolers.
Setting up your workshop begins with setting up the right date, time, location, agenda, speakers, food/refreshments and even atmosphere. For example, deciding when you are to hold a teacher’s workshop depends on the time of year because a teacher’s year is divided between school year and summer. If you hold it at the end of the school year, you might encounter teachers who are burned out and unwilling to attend something that they may see as knowledge acquired that will just fade away through the summer months. If you hold it at the beginning of the school year, they may be more energized and actually enthusiastic about new ideas that they can bring to new students in a new year.
Think of your workshop group and how they operate through the year. Putting yourself in their shoes and trying to figure out what is best for them and how they could get the most out of what you’re trying to relay to them is the goal.
Concerns like location, agenda, resources, even college credit or appropriate credit to the attendee really depend on the kind of workshop you’re organizing. In the instance when students are involved, make contact with the appropriate teachers or go straight to the Educational Resource Center, or the equivalent in your county. When dealing with special-interest groups, contact their main organizing office. An example would be if plan to put on a Realtor’s Workshop, contact the Board of Realtors to assist you in generating a mailing list, making sure all the necessary regulations are being followed, and taking care of any credit that needs to be acknowledged. Back to top.
General Public
Usually evenings or Saturdays are the best time for general public workshops because most people have day jobs and are coming to your event because it interests them. Making this a casual event is probably the best course of action, where your agenda is loose and your speakers entertaining and approachable. Putting on a district workshop for a general location,
Special Interest Audiences
Whatever audience your workshop is geared toward, think of it like some big public meeting you’re organizing where the people attending have come to learn and interact with other like-minded individuals. You’ll need to narrow down some basics like: As for resources, remember you’ll most likely need: Your agenda for this event has to be interesting, quick and fast-paced and probably not longer than 5 hours in order to keep the attention of the students. Each section of the workshop should not exceed 35-40 minutes and, if possible, let the students move about between sessions. Charismatic guest speakers should be chosen and hands-on breakout sessions where the kids can actually touch and create are preferable. Learning by doing, asking others for help and seeing how other kids do things is a great way to cover several bases in social education. Making it fun or providing something “cool” like a snake as an example of wildlife in a wetland is very important, too. Be sure to include home school teachers in your workshop promotions. Many belong to home school networks that can be accessed through the Internet. Work with your Educational Resource Center for a list of all teachers in your county. They can also give you information on professional development requirements for teachers. How you go about organizing your workshop is entirely up to you. Participating in someone else’s workshop before planning your own is helpful. Don’t be afraid to ask if you can observe or help with another person’s workshop. We all benefit from working together to provide quality programs. Adapted with permission from Soil and Water Conservation District Outreach: A Handbook for program Development, Implementation and Evaluation. 2003. Ohio Department of Natural Resource Division of Soil and Water Conservation.Organizing a workshop for a special interest audience
Student Leaders
Months prior to the event,
Teachers/Home Schoolers
Scheduling workshops for teachers can be challenging