Designing and Preparing a Workshop

Close-up photo of a whiteboard with some pens on the front shelf

When designing a workshop, you should think about your aims, the resources and time you have, your budget, facilities, and your purpose. Design accessibility and inclusivity in from the start – not as an afterthought.

The main thing is to think about your audience. Why are you doing this, and what would you consider success? What level of maths do you expect people to have? What kinds of things are they interested in, and how can you relate that to what you’re talking about? Much well-meaning engagement is pitched badly, and it’s often because someone forgot to think about the audience! There is no such thing as ‘the general public’.

Some practical tips for workshop planning:

  • A clear structure, set out in advance, sets expectations. An outline of what you’ll be covering in the session, given at the start (without giving away any surprises!) will help people know what to expect. Recapping at the end also helps remind people what they’ve seen, so they can share it with others. Make sure you also have some flexibility built in!
  • For each section of the session, make a list with headings ‘What am I doing?’ and ‘What are they doing?’. If one side has too much ‘Sitting quietly and listening’, your session needs a rethink. Even in a presentation/talk, give them things to discuss amongst themselves or problems to solve (even if you don’t ask them to share their answers); in a workshop, get a good mix of hands-on activities, thought and discussion, in amongst listening to you explain things. This kind of planning can also help you notice if all the parts of your session are too similar to each other – vary the style, content, pace and level to keep things interesting. Don’t just list things! Decide on the topics you want to cover, but plan it around activities. If you can’t think of an interactive activity to reinforce or develop an idea, keep that topic short in the session or lose it entirely.
  • Organisation and planning is crucial – as well as the session content, thinking about equipment, accessibility, risk assessments, contingencies etc. will make your life much easier down the line. Sample risk assessments, or ones from similar activities, may be available for you to look at/steal. As well as a risk assessment, think about an accessibility assessment – if students with access requirements are attending, what have you built into the session to accommodate that?
  • Sessions take time to bed in – the first time, you’ll be finding your way and it won’t be perfect. Finding all the possible wrong answers people give, and how you should respond to them, takes time. Make sure you have extra material, and plans for what to drop, in case your timing is off (or if some students work quicker than others - on-the-spot extension activities are useful for activities which take variable amounts of time for different people).
  • Prepare for when things go wrong - things won’t always go smoothly, but being prepared – through experience, or anticipation and planning – will help you not to panic. If you’ve practiced enough that you’re comfortable with the material, you’ll have extra headspace for troubleshooting. Create time before the session starts to make sure everything is working.

As well as these practical aspects, it's also useful to think about the content you'll include in your workshop.

  • Humans engage with things both rationally and emotionally. Try to tell stories - about things that have happened to you, or to others, rather than just explanations. Think about the story you’re telling across the whole session too – is it connected, or just a series of separate things? Is there drama, or tension, or a journey your audience joins you on?
  • Putting things in context can help - real-world applications, how far this goes, how long ago was this done, who are the real people involved (while making sure you showcase diversity and allow everyone to feel represented - if you can’t do that, don’t focus on people as much).
  • Bear in mind that when you’re doing public engagement, you need to engage people but you don’t necessarily need to educate them. This should be less like a lecture or lesson, and more focused on engaging, drawing out interest and inspiring curiosity than actually getting information across (that’s a nice side benefit if it happens!)
  • Don't forget to include time to tell people who you are and what you do! Meeting a real-life mathematician is cool. Take chances to mention what about this topic appeals to you, and why you chose to study maths.

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