Learn the art of planning and conducting workshops. Sessions can be scheduled by special arrangement.

View in pdf.

The WOW is a challenging, highly participatory two-day session that – with a touch of humor – gives practical, research-based tools for preparing and leading a superb workshop with minimal stress.

This experience-based process enables you to identify, assess and enhance the skills needed to become a more effective presenter. Research-based principles underpin context for participants to collaborate in creating informative, practical and engaging presentations. During the WOW, you will:

• Experience a complete process for planning and conducting workshops.
• Review principles of adult learning.
• Contrast needs assessment approaches.
• Write and refine workshop objectives.
• Design innovative activities and use technology to create online products.
• Practice and expand your facilitation skills.
• Network with other professionals. Produce new workshop designs. Share them with all participants as take-home products.

The WOW is a highly-popular seminar that demonstrates a variety of approaches for conducting successful workshops. Every activity presented has been tested successfully numerous times in actual training sessions by IDRA facilitators. You will receive a training manual that presents the workshop model and is used throughout the WOW. The manual includes:

• WOW principles of training, useful positive assumptions about adult learners and a definition of the trainer’s role based on those assumptions.
• A detailed description of the process for planning a workshop, including assessment needs, setting objectives, designing activities and structuring the workshop as a whole.
• Suggestions for conducting the workshop effectively including trainer presentation skills and roles.
• Suggestions for workshop evaluation.
• An annotated bibliography with a review of sources IDRA uses when we plan our workshops – an excellent source for establishing your own resource library.
• A catalog of activities for presentations, exhibits, audience participation, discussion, case studies, experiential lecture, nonverbal games, skill practice, coaching and more.
• How to use the quiz in a workshop.
• Criteria for developing questions that deepen discussion and expand critical learning.
• Seven steps to designing a workshop quickly.

All materials are available in English and Spanish. The session is conducted bilingually in Spanish and English if there are participants whose dominant language is Spanish. Registration includes books, working materials and planning materials on disc.

Benefits and Outcomes

• Experience and analyze the key elements of setting a positive learning climate.
• Compare and contrast principles of teaching adults.
• Review and apply the WOW system for planning workshops.
• List needs of potential participants.
• Develop and refine objectives for workshops.
• Plan activities for workshops and learn new activities and approaches.
• Create new workshop designs made available to all participants through technology.

IDRA Support
IDRA provides expert training and technical assistance for the WOW workshop as well as follow-up online assessment, feedback and guidance in developing workshop designs.

Each WOW session must have at least 15 to 40 participants. The cost is only $300 per participant.

An example of a model plan that IDRA could use with your district is in the box below.

The WOW Will Address Your Specific Needs
Examples of needs that the WOW addresses:

• Teachers who move into leadership positions and are new to presenting workshops to their peers.
• Staff who have professional development responsibilities and need a model and a framework for designing and delivering effective workshops.
• Staff who must present to parents and to others in the broader community.
• Emerging parent leaders and volunteers who want to improve their planning and presentation skills.
• Staff who must introduce a new curriculum, innovative teaching approaches or new educational programs.
• Staff who are responsible for presenting policy, rules and regulations and are seeking to do it in a more participatory manner that increases understanding, use and application while decreasing participant boredom and negativity.
• Staff who have presentations with an excess of wordy slides and a minimum of audience engagement.
• Experienced presenters who want to innovate, change or freshen up their presentations.