WORKSHOP TECHNIQUE INTRODUCTION: The workshop is the name given a novel (refreshing, new) experiment in education.

Close group type of discussion will be held in form of workshop. It consist of series of meetings, usually four or more, with emphasis of individual work within the group with the help of consultants and resource personnel. Educational process has two aspects- theoretical and practical. Learning takes place in a friendly, happy and democratic under experts guidance. The workshops are organized to develop the psychomotor aspects of the learner regarding practices of new innovations in the area of education. Workshop helps to each participant opportunities to improve his effectiveness as a professional worker. DEFINITIONS: 1. According to L. Ramachandran: The workshop is a meeting of people to work together in a small group upon problems which are of concern to them and relevant to them in their own sphere of activity and to find suitable solutions. 2. According to Lorreta: Workshop refers to a group of individuals who work together toward the solution of problems in a given subject matter field during a specific period of time. 3. According to Basavantappa: Workshop is defined as assembled group of 10 to 25 persons who share a common interest or problem. They meet together to improve their individual skills of a subject through intensive study, research, and discussion. 4. According to Neeraja: A systematic approach to deal in detail about educational problems by means of a short meeting. OBJECTIVES: The workshops are organized to realize the following objectives: 1. Cognitive Objectives 2. Psychomotor Objectives 3. Affective objectives 1. Cognitive Objectives :The workshop is organized to i. Solve the problems of teaching profession.

ii. Provide the philosophical and sociological background for instructional and teaching situation. iii. Develop an understanding regarding the use of a theme and problem. iv. Identify the educational objectives in the present context. 2. Psychomotor objectives: (Skill development) i. To develop the proficiency for planning and organizing teaching and instructional activities. ii. To develop skills to perform a task independently. iii. To determine and use of teaching strategies effectively. iv. To train the person for using different approaches of teaching. 3. Affective objectives: (Attitude Development) i. To develop professional relationship between participants and resource person. ii. To permit the extensive study of a situation its background and its social and philosophical implication. iii. To take necessary steps to solve the problem of education. PURPOSES OF WORKSHOP: 1. To put teachers in situations that will break down the barriers between them to facilitate communication. 2. To give opportunity for personal growth through accepting and working towards a goal held in common with others. 3. To give teachers an opportunity to work on the problems those are direct, current, concern to them. 4. Teachers will learn new methods and techniques which they can use in their own classrooms. 5. To place teachers in a position of responsibility for their own learning 6. To put teacher in situation where they will evaluate their own efforts. 7. To give the teachers an opportunity to improve their own morale. PRINCIPLES OF WORKSHOP: 1. Workshop should focus on the current issues in the profession to be discussed. 2. Workshop should be conducted with full co-operation within organizers. 3. Giving the participants an active role will make teaching more effective.

4. Every individual has worth, and has a contribution to make to the common goal.

SCOPE OF WORKSHOP TECHNIQUE: The workshop technique is used mainly in the following areas of education. 1. Action research project for classroom problems. 2. New format of lesson plan. 3. Preparing instructional material or teaching model. 4. Workshop on preparing research synopsis and proposals. 5. Workshop for non formal education. 6. Workshop for designing programme for teacher education at any level.

PLANNING FOR A WORKSHOP:

Selection of a theme: Select the theme on workshop has to be organized. 1. The theme must be based on pre existing problem for which we should identify the solution. 2. Theme must be useful for the in-service workers for giving awareness and training of new practice in their working situation and which has a solution. 3. Theme must be directed towards the participants because to motivate their interest. After selecting a theme for workshop, following have to be planned. 1. Open a file: Correspondence relating to the planning, running and evaluation of workshop will soon reach proportions that call for proper filing. A suitable system might be a loose leaf file with the following subdivisions: Budget Workshop site Selection of participants Documentation Equipment checklist Publicity, press etc Evaluation

2. Selection of Resource Person: In organizing a workshop resource person plays following important roles:

They should provide theoretical and practical aspects of the theme. Resource person must have much more practical and theoretical exposure in their work field. Resource person should able to provide guidance to participants at every stage of and train them to perform the task effectively. Resource person should be able to supervise and also control the trainees.

3. Selection of the Participants: Criteria for selecting the participants: a. Type of Participants: Homogeneity: Participants should be homogeneous (same group). b. Select the p participants who will benefit by the theme of workshop and objectives. c. Number of participants: It can be found from experience that as many as 35 participants (seven groups of five) can be handled by one organizer. d. Select the participants 60 days before the workshop. e. 45 days before confirm the participants who are going to participate who are going to participate in the workshop. f. Voluntary participation and willingness to innovate. Select the participants those who attend the workshop voluntarily g. Each participant should already have demonstrated his desire for change by having adopted new methods of his own. 4. Selection of the Dates for the workshop: i. Date of workshop should not coincide with public or religious holidays, sports events. ii. At least one working day will preside the open of the workshop. iii. It should be planned prior to prevent inconvenience in conducting workshop. 5. Selection of the place for workshop: 1. Select the place where the Participants can stay and attend total activities of workshop on a full time basis. 2. Place should be far away from where the Participants live to enable them to participate in activities without interruption. 3. The place should be pleasurable one (Quiet, adequate seating, well ventilated, good lighting, etc.)

4. Booking a meeting room and hotel accommodation i. Book the room for conduction workshop and accommodation 6 months priorly to the day. ii. Take it in writing and insist in writing confirmation detailing the conditions you have specified, particularly as regards to meeting room. 6. Selection of Language: In workshop national Language must be the working language. It must be known by all Participants. 7. Selection of Committees: While organizing a workshop Committees must be formulated such as: 1. Organizer Committee: Should plan for programme They should schedule the programme They must select the days, dates, venue of workshop They should plan for budgeting

2. Assistant organizers Committee: selection must be done 4 months before the day organizer should select assistant organizers from another school or faculty Select each assistant organizer for every 10 participants. The assistant organizers will have the task of finding answers to questions put forward by the participants. 3. Sponsors Committees: Sponsoring Committee should be found by organizers to share the expenses of workshop Sponsors can extend their helping hand to provide place for workshop, sound media, food and snacks, printing material etc 4. Volunteers Committee: Serves the following Receiving the guests Orienting the place to the participants and experts Seating arrangement Serving food

They have to formulate Committees for- registration, transportation, food, stage, reception, publicity Committee etc. 8. Budget for Workshop: Organizers should plan the budget according to their plan of conducting workshop. Following simple formula is suggested to estimate the expenditure: E = (T+S) NX 1.25 E- Estimate T- Cost of return travel S- Living expenses (accommodation, food) N- Number of participants 9. Invitation of the participants: The main points to be covered in the invitation are: Aim of the workshop Theme of the workshop Working method of the workshop Get a deadline for application

Preparing Workshop Pamphlet / Booklet: Print pamphlets / booklets- chart specifying the Aim of the workshop Registration fees for the workshop Activities of programme in workshop Facilities arranged for the workshop These all help the participants to prepare physically and mentally before coming to the workshop. Content which the experts are going to present must be given at the time of documentation. This helps them to have reference copy of content for their future.

IMMEDIATE PREPARATION FOR WORKSHOP (ie 2-3 days before): 1. Review of the list of participants and resource persons:

- After getting the application we should prepare the finalizing the number of participants, list of participants should be prepared. - Resource persons also must be properly reminded. 2. Arrangement of room: - Two days before the workshop it should be arranged - The meeting room should be arranged so as to allow participants to sit at tables in small groups of three to five. - Allow the use of overhead projector it would be preferable in order to allow two documents to be compared together. - Make sure that everyone has a good view of the projection screen and discussion leader. - Room must be quite and that is arrangement is preferable to separate groups in different rooms. - Make sure that the room is away from the source of noise. - Room must be adequately darkened to project the overhead projector. - Make sure that electric power point that works and have an electrical extension flex and spare projector lamp available. - In addition have a stock of transparent cellulose sheets and marker crayons available that may be used to illustrate any remarks that may be in plenary (An intensive examination testing a student's proficiency in some special field of knowledge) sessions. 3. Arrangement of Staff and Equipmentneeded for document

reproduction during workshop: Staff and equipment needed for documentation must be arrangement one month before the day. Staffs: such as typist for typing the documents resulting from group work. Equipment: one month before itself should be arranged with all the needed equipment and prior to the workshop it should be checked that the things by using checklist. Equipment Checklist: 1. Note Pads(One for each Participants) 2. Pencils and sharpener (One for each Participants) 3. Rubber (One for each Table) 4. Two hold punch (1) 5. Adhesive tape (2 rolls) 6. Stapler (1)

7. Waste paper basket (One for each Table) 8. Drawing pins (2 packets) 9. File 10.Overhead projector (2) 11.Sharp projectors (2) 12.Electric extension flex (6 meter) 13.Electric adapter plugs (2) 14.Transparent cellulose sheets (50) 15.Crayon markers 16.Black board for flip charts 17.Dictionary 9. Arranging for press relations: Depending on the local situation, it may be worth deciding to inform the press. 10. Coordinating the Assistant organizers: All the assistant organizers should arrive at the site of the workshop without fail at least two whole days before the workshop and should have been told how important this coordination period is. 11.Time Table of Work: a. It is not recommended to arrange more than five hours of structured sessions a day. b. There should be provision of Teas break and lunch break at appropriate time interval and it should be planned through out the workshop. c. Last day dont forget to have a group photo snaps taken during the break. ROLES IN WORKSHOP TECHNIQUE: In organizing workshop the following four roles are performed. 1. Organizers of the workshop: Whole programme and schedule is prepared by the organizer. He has to arrange boarding lodging facilities for participants as well as the experts. The date, days, and venue of workshop are decided by him. The workshops are also organized by the institutions such as NCERT, DGHS sponsored workshop on nursing development.

2. Convener or chairman in first stage: At first stage of the workshop theoretical aspects are discussed by the experts on the theme of the workshop. Therefore a convener (the member of a group whose duty it is to bring together) is nominated or invited who is well acquainted with theme of the workshop to observe the work of the participants along with the expert and has to carryout the formalities and keynote of the workshop.

3. Experts or Resource Person: In organizing a workshop resource person plays following important roles: a. They should provide theoretical and practical aspects of the theme. b. Resource person must have much more practical and theoretical exposure in their work field. c. Resource person should able to provide guidance to participants at every stage of and train them to perform the task effectively. d. Resource person should be able to supervise and also control the trainees. 4. Role of Participant or Trainees: The participant should be interested or keen in theme of the workshop. At the first stage they have acquire understanding of the theme and at second stage have to practice and perform the task with great interest and seek proper guidance from the experts. They should carry the concept to their classroom to evaluate its workability in actual situation. They may suggest some modification in using the concept in classroom. The effectiveness of any workshop technique depends upon the involvement of the participants in the task. STAGES IN CONDUCTING WORKSHOP: Generally workshops are organized for 3 to 10 days duration. The period of workshop may be 40 days. It depends on the nature of task assigned to the workshop. It is organized in four stages: i. First Stage ii. Second stage i. First stage programmes: iii. Third stage iv. Fourth stage

1. Registration: Participants will pay their fees and they will register their names in registration counter. After that they will be given a identity card and workshop content handwork. 2. Inauguration: it is starting function of the workshop. In this all committee members, participants, resource persons will be gathered along with the chief guest. Chief guest will start the function with lighting the lamp and gives his guest speech regarding the theme. After to him organizer delivers his speech. 3. Preliminary introductory session: Organizer will give brief introduction about the workshop, which they are going to conduct. He will give orientation towards theme of the workshop and objectives. 4. Pretest: pretest will be given to the participants, which will be based in the theme of the workshop ie background knowledge about theme of the workshop. And it will be evaluated. 5. Break: Tea break and Lunch break in between the sessions. 6. Presentation of the theme of providing awareness: the resource person or experts are invited to provide the awareness and understanding of the topic. This stage is like a seminar. The paper reading is also done to discuss the different aspects of the theme. The trainees or participants are given opportunity to seek clarification. The experts provide the suitable illustration steps for using it in practice such as classroom teaching in education. ii. Second stage:

1. Formation of the Groups: in the second stage the total group is divided in to
small groups.

2. Assignment sessions and practical exercise: Groups will be given

assignment related to the theme. Practical exercise also will be given.

3. Guidance and Supervision: A resource person is assigned to provide

guidance to the work to perform. Along with guidance the expert also supervises each participants work. Every participant has to work individually and independently and has to complete the task within given time limit.

4. Clarifying session: The participant while doing his work if finds any difficulty
or doubt can be clarified with the help of expert.

5. Group discussion: If group members have completed their assignment at the

end they meet together and discuss their task within their group.

6. Preview of the next day: At the end of the each day all group members will
join together and discuss the programmes of the next day. iii. Third stage:

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There are four phases: 1. Presentation: at this phase all group meet at one place and present their report of work done at second stage. 2. Evaluation: - Post test: It will be given to the participants based on the content which was given by the experts during the presentation phase. That will be evaluated. a. Open suggestions: the participants are given opportunity to comment and give suggestions for further improvement. b. Expert Suggestion: the experts also provide suggestion on different aspects of the reports. 3. Validation: it is the end phase of the workshop. In this organizer will conclude the workshop after providing certificates to the experts and participants and also distribute the prizes to those perform well in their group activities. Chief organizer or assistant organizer will give vote of thanks and programme will end with National anthem. iv. Fourth stage: In fourth stage means after the actual programme, organizers as well as participants have to do their part of work. Organizers Part: 1. Letter of thanks: Within 15 days after the programme it is time to thank everybody who has helped, the organizers including those who have provided funds for the workshop, the members of the committee for sponsors and the assistant organizers. Inform theme in the letter that they will shortly be sent the report on the workshop. 2. Report on the workshop: report regarding the workshop must be printed and sent to the assistant organizers and other persons who helped to successful conduct of the workshop. The report will contain the following: a. An introduction giving a brief description of the focal context which led to the organization of the workshop. b. The general aims of the workshop c. Description of the progress of the workshop d. Selected samples of the work done in group e. List of documents used during the workshop f. The evaluation g. List of participants

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Part of Participants: They should get ready for the follow-up programme that will be conducted as a long term evaluation process at least one year after the day. Follow up: a. institution. b. The participants are invited to meet again and present their experience regarding applicability of the topic or new practice. c. During follow up meeting participants will also be assessed to which level they reached their objectives by using questionnaire and individual interview. The trainer has to go back to their institution. They asked to continue their task and examine the workability and usability in their

ADVANTAGES OF WORKSHOP: 1. Workshop is used to realize the higher cognitive and psychomotor objectives. 2. It is a technique which can be effectively used for developing understanding and proficiency for the approaches and practices in education. 3. It is used for developing and improving professional efficiency. Eg, Nursing, Medical, Dental etc 4. Teaching proficiencies can be developed by the workshop technique for nursing in-service teachers. 5. It provides the opportunity and situations to develop the individual capacities of a teacher. 6. It develops the feeling of co-operation and group work. 7. It provides the situation to study the vocational problems. 8. The new practices and innovation are introduced to in-service teachers. LIMITATIONS OF WORKSHOP: 1. The in-service teacher may not take interest to understand and use the new practices in their classroom. 2. The workshop cannot be organized to large number of groups, so the large number of persons can be trained. 3. The teacher may not take interest in practical work or to do something in productive form. 4. The effectiveness of the workshop technique depends on the follow-up programme. Generally follow-up programmes are not organized in workshop technique.

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CONCLUSION: In the workshop the total members may be divided in to small groups and each group will choose a chairman and a recorder. Learning takes place in a friendly, happy, and democratic atmosphere, under expert guidance. The workshop provides each participant the opportunity to improve his effectiveness as a professional worker. BIBLIOGRAPHY: 1. Basavantappa B T; Nursing Education; 1st edition; Jaypee Brothers Medical Publications (P) Ltd, New Delhi. 2. Barabara A M & Ruth A W-Price, Nursing education: Foundation for Practice Excellence; Jaypee Brothers Medical Publications (P) Ltd, New Delhi. 3. Aggraval.J.C. Principles Methods and Techniques of Teaching, Vikas Publishig house Pvt Ltd, 1996, New Delhi. ************************************************************************************* *****

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