Workshop encourages learning, thinking and creativity

STEPS FOR GOOD TRAINING WORKSHOP

Take brief planning

Draw a workshop planner
On your blank sheet of paper, draw a table with the following headings:
choose Topic from where you want to start ( it will change on the basis of group)
Learning Style/Activity and Time period

Decide what you want your participants to learn

 If you don't know what you want people to learn, it will be very hard to design your training workshop.
Think about your participants leaving the room at the end of the workshop. They should learn and should feel they can try to become special.

For Example...
Try to set 1 - 3 learning outcomes for a one-day workshop. Instead of saying, "I want to teach people about potatoes," try to be clear:
By the end of the day, participants will:
know how to plant potatoes
know which diseases affect potato crops and how to avoid them
have the knowledge and tools to complete their own planting and sowing time planner.
This also makes it much easier to market your training workshop, as participants can easily decide if it's right for them.


who are attending your workshop? Get clear picture about your audience ?

Who do you want to learn from your workshop? What level of knowledge do they already have about the topic? Do you know them, or are they strangers?

People have different learning styles –think about how you can put them at ease from the start, some find it easier to learn through discussion, group exercises, whereas others prefer to be lectured at, or given information to read themselves.

give them a chance to introduce themselves, and take care to explain why you are there and where your expertise comes from. Ask them if the learning outcomes will meet their needs.

write a bullet point list (Important points to discuss)

Bullet point three things they need to know to reach the learning outcomes
Under each learning outcome, write a bullet point list of up to three things your participants need to learn about.
Write these in the ‘topics’ column of your planner, one per row.
For example:
Learning outcome 1 - know how to plant a potato
best time to plant/seasons
seeds and tools required
soil types and feed.

Decide how you want to teach each section

Thinking about your audience and what you’re trying to communicate, decide what learning style would be best. Write this in the column marked ‘Learning Style’, beside each bullet point in the ‘topic’ column. For more complex topics, it’s useful to use two or even three styles like presentation, group discussion for each learning point, to make sure that all participants are taking it in.


Learning styles could include:

Small group discussion/exercises – explain an exercise to the whole group, then ask them to address it in smaller groups. This is usually when you've presented something a bit more complex. Asking them to discuss it and answer a question together will help them digest what you've told them, and then verbalize the new information for themselves. In a group format, it reduces the pressure on the individual to come up with an answer themselves. This can also be useful if you want to make 'force' certain participants to interact with each other.

Pairs exercise – ask participants to talk to their neighbor. This works when you’re confident that everyone has a basic understanding of the topic, so won’t be stuck with only one person to help them. It also works when you have little time for an exercise, as there are less people involved in the conversation.
Individual exercise/reading – this works when participants need to think about something unique to themselves or their organisation, or where there is a lot of text they need to read (people have hugely differing reading speeds and it can be intimidating to read as a group).

Don’t forget to factor in time for feed back. This can take up a lot of time, and you need to control it. Decide in advance whether you want to take feedback from every individual, from each group, or not at all. Explain what you’re going to do before you start the exercise.

Session of time increase

Work through the ‘time’ column and estimate how long it will take you to complete each section. You might find you've got too much. If this happens, you need to decide whether you can use a different learning style (for example, cutting down on feedback), or if you need to lose a topic.

Remember to factor in breaks, and time at the end for an evaluation form. Always build in some flexibility in time – if the participants have lots of questions, you should give yourself some leeway to answer them without rushing the rest of the day.
Be very clear about timings at the beginning of the day – some people like to sneak away early and this can be very disruptive if you’re running an interactive session. Ask people to tell you if they need to leave before the end.
You might find it easier to write the actual (clock) times rather than the length of time, e.g.
2.45 – 3pm (15 mins)
This means you know exactly when you need to finish a section.

Content of your section

Now you have designed the workshop, you need to actually write the content. Finally you should check whether you have completed all things what you want to tell your audience and are they grasping bullet points from you. Remember one thing ask feed back and if anyone suggest anything for your next workshop, make a note.  Followed these steps as you’ll have a structure to work to hr workshop, training workshop.