Teaching and learning

I just finished another workshop last weekend. Trying to conduct training, for a roomful of working professionals is interesting, to say the least. Quite often, the participants are there because they want to learn and their organization has been kind enough to pay for the session. Occasionally a student or newcomer who is eager to learn shows up. But more often, people come because their boss made them. And in every class, there is at least one person who thinks he knows everything (usually a “he”).

When you first begin to conceptualize the topic of the workshop and draft an agenda, the prospective composition of the audience is definitely in your frame of reference. It is best to build up a logical sequence to the topics you want to cover during the day. Then figuring out the mode of communicating the necessary information to the audience is the hard part. Usually once these steps are done, the content flows in pretty easily, if, and only if, the subject is one where you are an expert. Otherwise there is an additional step of educating yourself first.

In addition to subject knowledge, you need some time to figure out venue, pricing, logistics and the small details that can grow big really fast, if you ignore them till the end. What takes the most energy is the marketing of such training workshop. Sending it to your entire network of colleagues, past and present, all the business cards in your collection, posting the message on email groups, and other social media sites is imperative in this day of electronic communication. So you hit the send button to the large email list you have compiled. Immediately you receive emails – mostly failure notices, sometime automatic out of office replies. Then you wait. You start receiving promising emails from interested companies asking for more information. Then you wait some more. Usually by this time, the genuinely interested ones have already signed up. But the numbers grow slowly. Then comes the time to remind the early birds who had shown interest. By this time, these birds have flown, usually with some flimsy excuse.

I have been quite lucky in filling up my workshops (particularly the ones I do with my friend Anupama) so that ceases to be a worry after a few days. As the countdown begins, there are a lot of errands that need to be done, invoices to be made, further information to be communicated to the participants etc. And eventually it is D-day, time to get the show on the road.

The day goes by quickly. Everything works (except for the LCD projector which likes to doze off periodically). The participants actually participate. Feedback is good (including the one about lunch) but with opposite viewpoints expressed by some who want more visual presentation while others who want more engaging interaction. The hard nuts in the audience also crack a smile, the young enthusiasts look even more enthusiastic and the most distant (and experienced) person joins in the discussion. So it is a success. Everyone feels they have learnt something. I am sure I have learnt the most.

And that is why, once I recover from this workshop, I will plan the next one. Soon.