How Workshop Previews Can Accelerate Results
This post is part of my May 2023 series on time privilege and its implications for meeting and workshop design and facilitation.
Other posts in this series:
Approximate reading time: four minutes.
Respecting and making the most of people’s time when they convene synchronously, whether it be online or in-person, should be a priority for session design and facilitation.
Movie trailers showcase an upcoming movie in a manner that builds anticipation of, and enthusiasm for, its actual release. Effective workshop previews can do the same.
Providing a session preview PDF is now standard practice for any advance registration workshops I present. The foundation of the preview is a 5-6 page PDF, but I am experimenting with complementary information in video or audio form.
When session evaluations ask about the session preview, an average of 87% of respondents said they read all or part of it. Of those individuals, 92% rated it as positively contributing to their learning and community connections.
Let’s take a visual tour of the common components I include in a session preview to help accelerate participants’ learning and community. The following preview was for a half-day session involving higher education professionals working with fraternities and sororities.
Building Blocks of a Session Preview
Page One
Introduction is the focus of the first page and consists of the off-beat list of every job I’ve ever held, a brief paragraph highlighting my relevant experience for this specific audience, and then several paragraphs orienting participants to the nature of the learning experience and how they can prepare for it.
This section helps socialize people to the learning experience and complements and reinforces the marketing material used for the program. The more we can orient people to what is likely to happen, the more willing and prepared they may be to engage more fully.
I include the pictures of me at various stages in life and the eclectic job listing as a way to share a bit more about me both as a person and as a professional. People have already seen my full professional bio on the workshop registration site.
Page Two
Next is helping acclimate participants to the content in a manner to build their comfort with, and enthusiasm for, the learning experience I’ll lead. I also explain how collateral materials (slides, handouts, et al) will be used to help manage their expectations.
The purpose of providing the core questions they’ll be asked during the session is two-fold: (1) getting them in learning mode and thinking about the session and (2) supporting those individuals who contribute best when they have time to think and reflect before responding.
Page Three
A one-page pre-work assignment follows. When including pre-work for a session I tend to select materials that can be reviewed in 10 minutes or less such as this list of best and worst practices. Reading this list may provide some new learning or remind people of what they already may know. Both add to the overall value a workshop participant receives.
Page Four
Sharing what’s on the minds of workshop participants comes next. I’m a big believer in pre-survey participants whenever possible (more on that in a later post in this series) and sharing aggregated results in advance.
Here I highlight all of the different facilitation situations people express interest in learning more about. I specifically note those we will formally attend to in the session (the boldface items) as well as explain how I hope to address others … again managing expectations and socializing participants to the workshop experience.
Page Five
Prior to a session people often wonder a bit about who else will attend. In some cases, sharing that registration list in advance is desirable. Highlighting some of what I’ve learned about the participants from the advance survey is something I always include. It helps people know how they might be similar or different from others in the learning community they will encounter.
Page Six
Finally, I include a short annotated list of my favorite resources so people can start reading and learning if they so desire. I strongly encourage you to annotate any resource lists you include to give people a brief flavor of whether or not a particularly recommendation might merit their further attention.
Attendees first gain access to this list after completing my advance survey, but I also include it in the preview so survey non-respondents have that information. I also usually bring copies of each book for a small resource display people can browse.
Bottom line?
The time between someone registering for your workshop or conference is usually far greater than the length of the event itself. It is just absurd to not try to make more of it to achieve the desired outcomes for an event and increase the overall value participants receive. Thoughtful session previews are one simple way to do so.
If you were attending a workshop, what one thing might you also like in a preview? Let us know in the comments so we can consider your ideas in our respective efforts.
© Facilitate Better and Jeffrey Cufaude, 2023. All rights reserved.
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Thank you.
This, like many posts and articles, provided an approximate reading time. It took me longer than the suggested 4 minutes because I was curious about the content of the previews as well as what you wrote as comments.
1. When did it begin - that written words came with an approximate reading time?
2. When considering the preview of coming attractions in written format (more thoughts on format next), have you/do you/do you recommend adding approximate reading time? (I’ll search - am curious to know on what the time is based - word count?)
3. With a focus for me always on inclusion, and because you mentioned considering other-than-written or really more than one format, in what ways can previews be made more inclusive because participants may include language differences? people who are blind or have low vision or like me read very differently on a screen v in print? If in video-like format, those who are deaf? (As I wrote that I thought what a cool opportunity to use an Interpreter in screen.) including descriptors of how the program itself would be inclusive?
Very glad you’re doing this themed month.