Monthly Archives: December 2013

I love working with groups of people on learning and implementing new things. Some of the work I’ve done in the past involved “train the trainer” type of workshops. To help my students, I put together some thoughts about the process you can use to create interesting and effective workshops. It is based in part on group coaching models I learned through my counselling diploma program.

Defining your goals

Before you start, think about what you would like to achieve in the session. Each teaching goal can be approached from numerous angles. What is the angle that you would like to take? What particular insight do you feel that you can bring to the group? What are your ideal workshop outcomes?

After contemplating these questions, remember that the actual session has a life of its own. You may be planning for one outcome, but the actual outcome may differ. It’s all good. The process is sometimes more important than the results. The trick is to stay open and follow the group when needed.

Defining the activities

Now that you have defined your goals, it’s time to break down the lesson plan into activities. Lesson activities may follow this model:

• Provocation – an activity designed to provoke thoughts and emotions. It aims to direct the participants through an experience that will help them examine a topic from their own perspective.
• Debrief – debriefing of what people experienced during the initiating activity. It is important that anybody who wants to gets a chance to speak.
• Discussion – discussing the topic more in depth. Have a list of questions ready. This will help you in keeping the discussion going and the participants thinking.
• Skill practice (optional) – now that a topic has been discussed, try to find an activity that will show people how to integrate or apply what they have learned.

The different activities may take place with the whole group working together, or you may decide to direct people to work in sub-groups of varying sizes. Don’t forget to make it fun! Design some of the activities as games or other active tasks. People learn best when they enjoy themselves. Moreover, people learn best when they are actually experiencing the subject matter and get to think for themselves.

Adding structure

Supplement your lesson with activities that will facilitate the different transitions and overall program needs. A “check-in” at the start helps bring people into the lesson. A summary at the end helps people review the lesson in their mind. You may benefit from receiving feedback at the end, so that you can learn and improve your next workshop. You may also need to take some time to deal with administrative issues.

Timing your activities

It’s important to be aware of how much time you would like to allocate to each activity. Knowing how much time an activity “should” take may come with experience. In general, the total time of the different activities should add up to the time you have allocated for the entire lesson. Try to account for everything to avoid running out of time. It is better to include too few activities than to cram too many. Some activities have a flow of their own and will end up taking longer than planned.

Reviewing the needed preparation and equipment

Once the lesson plan is complete (or even before), start making a list of all the preparation that will be required. Also, make a list of all the equipment that you will need for the different activities, and make sure it will be available for the workshop.

Once all the preparation is done, it’s time to go out there and have some fun!