to Conduct an Interactive Workshop
Marva A. Barnett, Founding Director and Professor, Teaching
Resource Center, University of Virginia
Faculty, Department of French
An information sheet designed to help faculty and TAs present the
most effective workshops.
is an interactive workshop?
workshop engages the participants actively in learning new information
or techniques. The workshop facilitator makes it possible for audience
members to participate actively:
might help set the agenda
have chances to apply new information to their teaching
can analyze problems or difficulties in order to figure out solutions
often share their experiences and ideas.
you facilitate learning by the participants rather than giving them
all the answers.
should you present an interactive workshop?
and research show that people generally learn more and remember
better when they think about new material, figure out solutions,
and apply new knowledge to their own lives and needs. Such a surmise
is born out by participants in U.Va. Teaching Resource Center workshops
who repeatedly praise interactive workshops and recommend that we
take advantage of the expertise in the audience. Effective workshop
leaders recognize and take advantage of the combined wisdom and
experience of the faculty and TAs who attend (see below for details).
Such a workshop is sometimes called "process-oriented"
because the participants productively work through a process rather
than simply receiving the product (your techniques).
do you prepare an interactive workshop?
any U.Va. TRC workshop audience contains a number of people experienced
in teaching and/or counseling students and colleagues. Plan to treat
the audience members as colleagues.
Our two large teaching conferences occur in August and January,
just before classes begin. The August Teaching Workshop is targeted
toward TAs and faculty who are new to teaching at the University
of Virginia. Many of these "new" people, however, have
taught elsewhere and some have taught at U.Va. but are interested
in polishing their skills. Almost all who attend the January Teaching
Workshop have already taught at U.Va., with periods of time ranging
from one semester to decades.
80%-90% of the Teaching Workshop participants are TAs, please remember
that you probably also have faculty members in your audience. Some
TA and faculty needs are similar; some are different. Both TAs and
faculty members lead discussions, for instance. But TAs most often
teach a discussion section that grows from a lecture class taught
by a professor, while faculty teach their own course with discussion
as at least part of the methodology. Thus the facilitator of a discussion-leading
workshop for a mixed audience needs to spend the most time on techniques
of beginning and leading a discussion that are useful in both situations.
Only a small part of the workshop should deal with coordinating
discussions with lectures and other such TA matters.
your material / information.
you engage your audience in pinpointing difficulties and possible
solutions? In a workshop on teaching problem-solving strategies,
for example, you might ask the audience to brainstorm the skills
needed to solve problems. Or you could present some possibilities
and ask participants to supplement them. Or you could ask for anecdotes
or ideas about unsuccessful attempts to teach problem-solving, from
which you construct a list of pitfalls to avoid. After the audience
is actively thinking about possible problems and solutions, you
introduce your techniques to teach problem-solving.
segment of the workshop usually works best if participants practice
at least one of the techniques with each other. Small groups can
be particularly effective when one group member is the teacher,
the second the student, and the third an observer, who analyzes
the interaction with the help of a questionnaire (or guidelines)
that you provide. Remember, too, to model during your workshop the
techniques you are recommending (for instance, no lectures about
a workshop in which participants figure out some of what you already
know, look analytically at your topic. TRC staff members are happy
to help you with this process.
practical techniques and tips.
evaluations, participants always praise workshops offering practical,
hands-on ideas with understandable examples. It is important to
choose your examples from different disciplines and apply your techniques
to different situations when your workshop includes participants
from a variety of departments. A "workshop" by definition
gives participants something they can use.
about and research your topic enough to provide workshop participants
with ideas beyond simply what you do in your teaching (unless you
have a wide variety of techniques). The most useful and impressive
workshops give participants various perspectives and recognizes
different needs and styles. Go beyond personal anecdotes about what
happened to you.
interactive techniques such as the following:
from participants' questions or issues raised
participants work on problems or answer questions in small
groups, sharing solutions with the entire group
participants get involved physically, if only to move into
and out of groups.
working with a colleague or including students.
on your workshop topic, having involving students can be very effective:
workshops or panels dealing with ethical issues such as race
or gender in the classroom benefit from intelligent student
comments and stories of personal experiences. Teacher participants
have a chance to see the other side of the picture. But be careful,
of course, not to single out individual students to represent
an entire race or gender.
who have experienced your techniques (e.g., cooperative learning,
interactive lectures, teaching problem-solving) can comment
on it lucidly and persuasively.
teaching techniques with students can be enlightening to the
workshop involves the audience in determining problems, discovering
solutions, and making decisions, they will be too busy and engaged
to take lots of notes. But they want to remember what they learned
two months later when they have an immediate need for the information.
So note your main points and describe useful techniques well enough
for someone to make sense of them sometime in the future. We also
make handouts available to those who could not attend a session,
and they are very helpful to someone watching a videotape of your
ahead of time whether you will distribute your handout during your
workshop or at the end. Each technique has different advantages.
Some participants find it useful to take notes on a handout, completing
it as the workshop progresses. Other types of handouts summarize
main points and can be distracting to participants who need to focus
on the process of the workshop.
Please give an original of your handout to the Teaching Resource
Center at least a day before your workshop. If you want us to make
copies for you, we need the original at least ten days before your
do you conduct an interactive workshop?
early, if possible, and introduce yourself to individuals in the
audience. Both they and you will be more comfortable if you feel
any personal connection. If you are able to call on even two people
by name during the workshop, other participants will feel closer
to you and thus more willing to participate and accept your ideas.
Participants in many TRC workshops, including the large ones in
August and January, receive name tags.
out who in your audience is a TA and who a faculty member and what
disciplines they teach. Depending on your topic and your preparation,
you may need to clarify how your workshop will or will not respond
to different situations.
the interactive nature of the workshop.
own words and style to let the audience members know early on that
their experiences and expertise matter to you and to the others
and that you plan to engage them in discussion and exchange of ideas.
a Teaching Workshop with concurrent sessions, participants need
to complete one workshop in order to arrive on time at the next.
In any case, any presentation that runs beyond its allotted time
looks disorganized to the audience. Plan your time carefully, and
watch it during the workshop. You may need to respond to some individual
questions after the workshop officially ends.
are doing a workshop for the Teaching Resource Center, we will ask
participants for comments on what aspects of the workshop were most
useful and how future workshops might be improved. If you are doing
a workshop on your own, create a form that asks participants for