Designing and Facilitating Workshops

In higher ed, like in most fields, learning continues after employment. In this episode, Tolu Noah joins us to discuss strategies to design and facilitate effective workshops and professional development. Tolu is an educational developer with 16 years of teaching experience in higher ed and K-12. She received the 2019 Teaching Excellence Faculty Award at Azusa Pacific University and was named by EdTech Magazine as one of the 30 Higher Ed IT Influencers to Follow in 2023. Tolu’s work has been published in EDUCAUSE Review, Edutopia, and Faculty Focus. She is the author of Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education, published by Routledge, Taylor and Francis

A transcript of this episode and show notes may be found at http://teaforteaching.com.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
In higher ed, like in most fields, learning continues after employment. In this episode,
we explore strategies to design and facilitate effective workshops
and professional development. Thanks for joining us for Tea for
Teaching, an informal discussion of innovative and effective practices in teaching and learning.

(00:26):
This podcast series is hosted by John Kane, an economist...
...and Rebecca Mushtare, a graphic designer......and features guests doing important research
and advocacy work to make higher education more inclusive and supportive of all learners.

(00:48):
Our guest today is Tolu Noah. Tolu is an educational developer with 16 years of teaching
experience in higher ed and K-12. She received the 2019 Teaching Excellence Faculty Award at
Azusa Pacific University and was named by EdTech Magazine as one of the 30 Higher Ed IT Influencers
to Follow in 2023. Tolu’s work has been published in EDUCAUSE Review, Edutopia, and Faculty Focus.

(01:13):
She is the author of Designing and Facilitating Workshops with Intentionality: A Guide to Crafting
Engaging Professional Learning Experiences in Higher Education, published by Routledge,
Taylor and Francis. Welcome Tolu. Thank you so much. I'm really
excited to be here.We're very happy to be
talking to you today. Today's teas are:... Tolu, are you drinking tea by any chance?

(01:34):
Yes, I have passion tea, and I also have water.
Very good.All the things.
Yes. I have Blue Lady tea today.
Very good. And is that a black tea or a green tea?
It's blue. No, it's black. It's black. It's from Scotland.
Okay, so it's not a black and blue tea, then.It's not a black and blue tea,

(01:57):
not like my other one.…no bruising in shipping.
Yeah.And I am drinking a ginger tea today.
So we've invited you here today to discuss Designing and Facilitating Workshops with
Intentionality. Can you talk a little bit about the origin story for this book project.
Yeah, so the idea for the book was actually sparked by an invitation I received in December
2022. So I do workshops and speaking engagements on the side for K-12 schools and universities,

(02:21):
and there's this one district that I've partnered with for years now, doing workshops for their
coaches and leaders. And so they reached out and asked if I would be willing to do a workshop on,
quote, how to design an awesome synchronous workshop for adult learners. And I remember
reading the email and being like, “Yes, like, I would absolutely love to do something like that,”
because this would be my first time doing more of a meta workshop on all the things that go into

(02:43):
designing and facilitating learning experiences. And I was really excited to be able to kind of
peel back the curtain in that way. And so we scheduled the workshop for the spring semester, so
spring of 2023, and during the months in between, I was just working on prepping the workshop. And
along with that, I had the opportunity to write an article for EDUCAUSE Review that was entitled

(03:03):
“Designing Virtual Ed Tech Faculty Development Workshops that Stick.” And that article ended
up being one of the most popular articles for the first quarter of 2023, which was really exciting
to hear. And so fast forward to May 2023, I did that three-hour workshop for the district about
how to design awesome workshops. And the feedback I got from that session was also really positive
and really encouraging. And so the responses to both the article and the workshop made me think,

(03:28):
“Okay, I think there's something here. There's clearly an interest in learning more about how
to do workshops well.” And on top of that, I hadn't seen any books that were specifically
geared towards those of us who facilitate in higher ed about how to design meaningful
workshop experiences. And so that summer, I started working on the book proposal and
drafting the chapters, and the rest is history.You note in the introduction that your book relies

(03:50):
on three different frameworks. What are these frameworks and why are they important?
Yeah, so the three frameworks that I draw upon are Joshua Eyler’s book, How Humans Learn,
where he talks about five ways that humans learn, and then the universal design for learning
guidelines from CAST and then the new learning compact, which was developed by Randy Bass,

(04:11):
Brett Eynon and Laura Gambino. And so, starting with How Humans Learn in this book, Josh basically
like sums up the research on human learning, and he identifies five themes that capture how
people of all ages learn. And those themes are curiosity, sociality, emotion, authenticity,
and failure. And he discusses the implications of those themes for college teaching. And in my book,

(04:32):
I'm kind of applying those themes to the design and facilitation of professional learning
workshops. So as facilitators, what are some ways that we can pique participants’ curiosity in our
sessions, and how can we create opportunities that leverage the benefits of sociality and
things like that? So the second framework that I draw on is Universal Design for Learning,
and this has three overarching principles of designing multiple means of engagement,

(04:54):
and representation, and action and expression. And typically UDL guidelines are looked at within the
context of teaching. So, if you're a K-12 teacher or a higher education instructor, you'll think
about what this looks like when you're teaching students. But in my book, I wanted to look at it
through the lens of facilitation. So as we are creating professional learning experiences for
adult learners, how can we honor their variability and also reduce barriers to learning that exist

(05:19):
within the learning environment? And so one concrete example of this would be the “design
options for welcoming interests and identities” guideline. And so I actually talk about ways that
we can offer participants choice in their learning, and how we can also design more
relevant professional learning experiences. And then the third framework that I draw on
is the New Learning Compact. And this one has 16 different principles for designing professional

(05:42):
learning experiences in higher education. But in my book, I mostly just focus on the first eight,
which are most relevant to professional learning programming, and I discuss how we can use these
to shape our design and facilitation of workshops as well. So one example here would be the “protect
participant time” principle. And so I talk about how can we plan workshops in a way that,
once again, makes the best use of the time? What do we want to think about in terms of scheduling?

(06:06):
So things like offering sessions multiple times to accommodate different schedules, and then also
being mindful of when we're scheduling events, like by looking at multi-faith calendars and other
resources to make sure that we're not scheduling things at times that are going to conflict with
major religious holidays and things like that.This works really nicely in that the last two
podcasts were related to UDL and accessibility. So we'll include links to those in the show

(06:30):
notes for anyone who may have missed those. So, you just described the three frameworks that
you're using, but in your book, you also Zoom in on 10 essential principles for facilitators.
Can you talk about a few of those? Yeah, so in my book, I sum up each principle
as like one key word to hopefully make it a little bit easier to remember. So I'll just
describe three of them. One of the principles is “connective.” And this is all about how we

(06:53):
can foster belonging, rapport, and connection in workshops. So kind of tying back to Eyler’s
principle about sociality, how do we actually do that in a workshop setting? And so in this
section of the book, in this chapter, I highlight three different types of connections that we want
to be intentional about fostering. So that would be learner-to-facilitator connections where we
help participants get to know and trust us, and then facilitator-to-learner connections

(07:16):
where we get to know participants, and then learner-to-learner connections where we help
them get to know each other and also learn from each other too. And in this chapter, I've got tons
of practical strategies that facilitators can use to foster these different types of connection. So
with the learner to facilitator, doing things like sharing a little bit about our personal story in
a way that's relevant and appropriate to whatever topic we're discussing, inviting participants to

(07:42):
introduce themselves, and then also designing ways to center their experience and expertise,
and then also using interactive activities that will help participants to work together and
connect with and learn from each other. And so I talk about things like liberating structures,
which are really helpful activities that can be used in pretty much any workshop design. And then
another principle that I talk about is inclusive, which is all about adopting an inclusive mindset.

(08:04):
And this would be both when we're planning and designing the workshop, and then also when we're
facilitating it. And so I highlight a lot of different inclusive facilitation practices in
this chapter, things like making sure that the images and materials that we're using in our
workshops reflects the diversity of perspectives and experiences that we have in our society,

(08:25):
also making sure that we're learning and correctly pronouncing and using participants’ names,
and then making sure that the physical or virtual space where the workshop will be held
is accessible too. And then the last principle that I'll highlight for now is distinctive,
and this is all about how you bring who you are to your workshop design and facilitation practices,
because one of the recurring themes that I have in my book is that there's no one right way to

(08:48):
design and facilitate workshops, like we're all going to do it a little bit differently,
and we want to do it in ways that honor who we are and that also honor the unique context that we're
working in. And so in this chapter, I encourage readers to reflect on how their identity, values,
beliefs, and prior experiences all shape their approach to workshop design and facilitation,

(09:09):
and I also include interviews that I conducted with seven higher ed facilitators who talk about
who they are and how that shapes what they do.Those principles you talked about, in general,
also seem very much like best practices for teaching. One of the things that is always kind
of ironic is that many people, including myself, far too often, will not use those practices

(09:30):
when running workshops. Why is this so common when educational developers are talking about
active learning, cooperative learning, UDL, and inclusive teaching practices, yet in the workshops
that we structure ourselves, we don't always do that. Why is this practice so common?
That is a really great question. And while I can't like give any definitive answers as to

(09:52):
why this happens, I'll share a few thoughts. One comes from an article by Amy Mulnix,
where she talks about how this might be due to a lack of transfer. And so, for example,
an educational developer might think of topics like active learning and cooperative learning,
and inclusive teaching within the realm of traditional classroom teaching with students,
but not transfer that to their own design of professional learning experiences for adult

(10:15):
learners. So that might be one potential reason. Another potential reason, I think, comes from
the fact that we often emulate what we see. So if you've mostly attended workshops where you've just
seen someone standing at the front of the room and talking for the majority of the time, then you
might think that that's how you do a workshop and repeat that practice, kind of similar to how some
instructors will primarily rely on lecture-based approaches, because that's what they experienced

(10:36):
when they were learning as well. And then a third potential reason would be, I would say,
the pressure to feel like we have to cover as much as we can within the time period. And I think when
we have that kind of coverage mindset, it can lead to us relying on lecture-based approaches, because
that's more efficient and because it's a little bit faster and easier than if we were to include

(10:56):
a lot of interactive activities. So those are three potential reasons for why I think that might
happen. And one thing I like to encourage people to do is to just remember that when it comes to
professional learning, we have so many different options for how we can do professional learning.
So workshops are one option, but they're not the only option. And so I like to tell people, like,

(11:17):
if you're planning a session where you're going to mostly just be talking to participants, then maybe
it might be best to consider a different format than a workshop for that type of a session, and
so you could potentially record a video instead, or create a podcast episode that people could
listen to on their own time. Or you could create a resource like a blog post or a newsletter or

(11:37):
microlearning activity that people can engage with on their own. I think workshops are ideally best
suited for times when you're really going to have people do work during the session and actively
engage with the content and with each other. I think, in my case, it's mostly that time
pressure, that we have limited amounts of time and trying to transfer as much information in
that short time period. And I try to break myself of that habit, and I'm still working on it.

(12:01):
I think that happens a lot of times in my classroom too, right?
100% and we're, like I said, even though I'm talking about this, I've done the same thing
too. So, it's one of those things where it's like, we just want to be mindful of it and
try to be more intentional about minimizing that as much as we can moving forward.
So we talked a little bit about maybe not transferring these evidence-based practices

(12:22):
into a workshop setting. Are there other mistakes that educational developers often
make when designing and running workshops? Yeah, so one mistake that I often see is packing
too much into one workshop, and I think once again, we've all been there, myself included,
where I think we sometimes feel the need to be like as comprehensive as we can in addressing a
particular topic. And while I feel like that comes from a really good place of wanting to make sure

(12:45):
that people have the information and the skills and whatever else they need to actually implement
that once the workshop is over, it can often result in people feeling really overwhelmed,
and it can also lead to us, once again, kind of defaulting to more of that lecture-based
talking really quickly, approach to just try to get through everything. And so I think
it's important to remember that less is more. It's better to address fewer things during the session,

(13:08):
but give people an opportunity to do something with that that's going to be really meaningful
than to pack a bunch of content in and then people are leaving feeling like, “Ah, that was a lot.”
And also remembering that we don't have to pack everything into one, so something that I'm seeing
a lot of centers doing more nowadays is creating workshop series where you can actually address
sub-topics over the course of time. And so I would say that if you have a lot of content that doesn't

(13:32):
all fit into one session, maybe that's just a good indicator that it could be a series or some other
type of professional learning experience, instead. Another common mistake that I see is not ending on
time. I've been in countless sessions where it's like a minute to the end, or it's already the end,
and the facilitator has just started talking about a new topic, and then they don't end up wrapping
up the session until 5 or 10 minutes later. And I think it's really important to remember that

(13:54):
when people register for our workshops, they're choosing to say yes to us, which means that they
had to say no to something else, and they're choosing to say yes to us for a specific amount
of time. And so I think it's really important to honor the time that people have given us and to
end on time. And so typically, I would recommend wrapping up any new information or new activities

(14:15):
about 5 to 10 minutes before the end of the session, so that you can wrap up on a meaningful
note, like maybe having people do a reflection or action plan, and that way they can be ready to go
by the time the session is officially over. And one last mistake I'll share for now is one that's
specifically related to virtual workshops, and that is disabling the chat. I don't know
if you've been in sessions where that's the case, and I have a whole section in my book where I talk

(14:38):
about why the chat is so important, so I won't go into the weeds of that right now, but it's
basically a really important space where a lot of the learning takes place, in a virtual workshop,
it's where people are processing information and connecting with each other and reflecting on their
learning. And so rather than shutting down the chat, I think it's really important to leverage
it in intentional ways in the session.And I've been in many workshops where the

(15:00):
information shared in the chat was often more relevant and useful than the material that was
being shared by the workshop leaders. One of the things you just mentioned is series of
workshops. So many workshops that educational developers do are just one off events. And
so one way of doing this is having a sequence of workshops in a particular topic. Are there
any other ways of continuing that professional development that might start in a workshop?

(15:25):
Yeah. So one simple strategy that I think a lot of people are already doing is creating
some sort of supplementary resource that people can refer to after the session. And
so this could be a one pager or a tutorial video, or some other resource that people
have to go back to once the session is over and review or go deeper with their learning. I think
we can also leverage pedagogical consultations as a natural extension of the workshop. So one

(15:48):
thing I do whenever I'm facilitating a workshop at my university is I remind participants, “Hey,
I'm available for pedagogical consultations if you want to review anything we've talked about today,
or go deeper, or co-plan,” and I remind them, like I said, every session, because I want them
to reach out. And I think that during those one-on-one conversations, that's where you
can really help people take what they learned in the session and think about it within the context

(16:10):
of their specific courses and apply it in a meaningful way there. And then a third way that I
think can be really valuable is incorporating some type of certificate, but tying that certificate
into implementation of the workshop goals and ideas. And so I'll share a concrete example of
how I recently did this. Earlier this year, I did a two-part workshop series about classroom

(16:30):
assessment techniques. And the first workshop was about techniques for assessing students
prior knowledge and beliefs about course content. And then the second workshop was about techniques
for checking students’ understanding. And I told instructors that they could earn a certificate for
submitting evidence of implementing at least two CATS in their teaching. So one from session one,
one from session two. And I also told them that everyone who earned a certificate would also

(16:53):
be entered into a drawing where they could win a copy of the Classroom Assessment Techniques book.
And so I set up two Qualtrics forms, and they could upload their evidence of implementation
to those Qualtrics forms. So some had like a screenshot of a polling activity that they used,
or open-ended responses from a minute paper, whatever it might be. And there were also a few

(17:13):
reflection questions for instructors to reflect on. And after the final deadline had passed,
I took some time to review all of the entries and make certificates for the instructors. I
also recorded a Loom video where I basically made a virtual spinner of all of the people who
had earned a certificate, and I spun the virtual wheel to reveal who had won the book drawing. And

(17:34):
this actually ended up being such a fruitful and fun and meaningful way to extend learning
beyond the workshop, like I thoroughly enjoyed reading all of the instructors’ reflections on
their experience implementing the CATs. Many of them were saying, “This is exactly what I needed.
I'm so excited to continue implementing these in my teaching.” And that's what we ultimately want
from a workshop. We want people to take what they learned and do something with it. And so

(17:55):
I think creating that structure of “you can earn a certificate by showing how you've implemented
what you've learned” can be another natural way to extend learning from a workshop.
One of the key elements is time. And you've mentioned this about ending on time, extending
the learning beyond the time of the workshop. Are there other ways to maybe manage time,

(18:15):
or ways to use time, like breaks and other things that would be important during a workshop?
Yeah, so Rebecca, I love what you said about breaks. That is pivotal. And once again,
I think we sometimes default to, “Okay, I want to make sure I cover all of my content,” and so we
don't think about the human needs of like people need to stretch and use the restroom and just
have some time to process. So yes, I would say breaks are definitely essential. And I would say

(18:39):
including that as part of your plan from the start is really, really helpful. So if you have, like,
a 90-minute session, figuring out, okay, where are we going to take at least a five minute break
so that people can rest and attend to whatever personal needs that they need to. In terms of
other timing things to think about, I've used a few different tools that have been helpful. So
one is, whenever I'm facilitating a workshop, and there's going to be activities for people to do,

(19:02):
like maybe they're going to do an independent reflection, and then they're going to do a small
group activity, whatever that might be, I'll often embed timers on my slides, because that
helps people to know, like, this is how much time I have to talk about this or do this activity. But
then it also helps me to kind of keep things on pace. And then while I'm facilitating the session,
I'm paying attention to what participants are saying and doing, what my plans and goals are for

(19:25):
the session, and I'm constantly kind of adjusting things in the moment. So if I realize that we're
running short on time, I'm thinking ahead, “Okay, what can I cut in order to make sure that we end
on a meaningful note,” like, what is a necessary thing to address? What's more of a nice to know?
And can I move any of that, maybe into those post-workshop resources, instead of feeling
like I have to, once again, pack everything into the session. But yeah, I fully agree that timing

(19:48):
piece is so critical. And one other thing I'll add here in terms of timing is thinking about
what we're having people do during the time of our workshop. And so something that I talk about
in my book is this concept of the facilitator zone and the participant zone. So the facilitator zone
would be times when you are explaining or modeling skills to the group, and then the participant

(20:09):
zone would be times when they are working on something, so they're engaging with the content,
or they're engaging with each other. And I think if we look at our workshop plans and kind of map
out like how much of this is in the facilitator zone, how much of this is in the participant zone,
and are we breaking up that throughout the session, so that participants aren't just
engaging with the content at the very beginning or at the very end with like a Q and A but that

(20:30):
we're really providing meaningful opportunities throughout for them to be able to process the
information and connect with each other.This book is targeted at those engaged in
educational development, but might much of the discussion be relevant to faculty
designing and offering college classes.I love that you asked this question, because yes,
it can absolutely apply in other contexts too. And I actually consider myself to be an educator

(20:54):
first and foremost, like I've known since fourth grade that I wanted to teach. I've spent my entire
career in K-12 teaching and higher education as a professor, and so I definitely drew on my
prior experiences teaching in writing this book, and I would definitely say that a lot of these
principles and practices and the strategies as well can also be adapted for other contexts too.

(21:16):
So definitely encourage people, even if you're not necessarily a facilitator, I encourage
you to check it out and see, like, what can you take and adapt to your specific
teaching context, whatever that might be?So we always wrap up by asking, “what's next?”
So honestly, I just want to rest after this. I don't know if that's like an okay answer,
but I've pretty much been working on this book nonstop since June 2023 and I'm really

(21:42):
excited for it to just be out there, and hopefully of use to other people,
and I'm excited about engaging with others around the book, but yes, I do want to kind of just kind
of take a step back and rest and just enjoy that part of the process. I might design some other
opportunities around the book in the future, but for now, yeah, I'm just gonna chill.

(22:02):
Sounds like a good plan. Yeah, it sounds like it's a
well-deserved rest. Thanks.
Thank you for joining us. We very much enjoyed this, and your book provides some really useful
resources for people who do educational development in any form, whether it's for
faculty or for students.Thank you so much.
We should note that your book is now available for pre-order, and it is expected to be released

(22:26):
on June 25. We'll include a link to the book's website in the show notes.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and leave a review on iTunes
or your favorite podcast service. To continue the conversation, join us on

(22:46):
our Tea for Teaching Facebook page. You can find show notes, transcripts and
other materials on teaforteaching.com. Music by Michael Gary Brewer.