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Session 2. Setting Outcomes and Designing a Workshop
Objective. Write clear, observable outcomes for a training session and design a 2-3 hour teacher workshop with activities for adults in which colleagues do most of the work.
A workshop plan is a promise about what colleagues will do with their time. Plans that list topics, such as 'assessment, two hours', rarely change anything, because they say what the trainer will cover and not what teachers will do. This lesson goes deeper than the key ideas: how to test an outcome, how to count the minutes in a plan, and how to prepare for the day when the projector fails.
Key ideas
Outcomes for a training session
- An outcome says what each teacher will be able to do or will have made by the end, and what they will try in class. 'Teachers will understand questioning' cannot be seen; 'each teacher will write three questions that make pupils explain' can.
- Use verbs you can see: write, sort, practise, plan, compare, choose. Avoid 'understand', 'be aware of', 'appreciate'.
- Two or three outcomes are enough for 2-3 hours: one for knowing, one for doing in the room, one for trying in class.
The shape of a 2-3 hour workshop
- A reliable shape: why it matters (10 min), experience the problem (20), short input (20), practise in pairs (40), break (10), plan own use (30), commit and close (20). That is 150 minutes.
- Keep input short, roughly a sixth to a fifth of the time. Colleagues learn by doing the thing with a partner and then planning where it fits in their own lessons.
- End with a commitment: what I will try, in which lesson, by which date, and with which buddy.
Activities for adults
- Choose the activity to match the outcome: sort cards to see categories; discuss a short case to weigh choices; teach colleagues as if they were pupils to show a technique; micro-teach for five minutes in pairs to practise; run a planning clinic to adapt it to real lessons.
- Use real artefacts: their own lesson plans, a set of anonymous pupil answers, a page of the textbook. Real material makes the work relevant.
- Each activity needs four things written down: the instruction, the grouping, the time and the product on paper. Change the activity about every 15-25 minutes so that attention stays up.
Prepare for the real room
- Mark each part of the agenda MUST, SHOULD or COULD. If 20 minutes disappear (an announcement, a late start), you know what to cut first and what to protect.
- Print handouts, seat people in groups of three or four, plan an offline version if there is no power or projector, and try each activity yourself first.
- Start and end on time. Tired teachers forgive a simple session, but not a long one that steals their evening.
A 150-minute workshop
Three tests for an outcome
Before you trust an outcome, run three tests. The film test: could a camera record someone doing it? The tomorrow test: could a teacher do it in a lesson tomorrow? The evidence test: what will be on paper at the end of the session? 'Each teacher will write two exit questions for next week's lesson' passes all three. 'Teachers will be aware of formative assessment' fails all three.
Limit yourself to two or three outcomes. Each real outcome needs 30 to 40 minutes of practice and planning, and a two-hour session has only so many of these. A good set often has one outcome for knowing something, one for doing it in the room and one for trying it in class, and that last one connects the workshop to the follow-up you will design in session 4.
Counting minutes: who is working?
Take a highlighter and colour every minute in which colleagues talk or make something. Leave the minutes in which you talk uncoloured. If the page is mostly empty, redesign. A useful pattern is a gradual hand-over: you show one example, you do a second together, and then pairs do a third alone. Colleagues see the technique, feel it, and then own it.
Then add the hidden minutes. Every change of activity costs two or three minutes: moving chairs, reading instructions, collecting papers. Five activities mean ten to fifteen minutes of transitions. Late arrivals and announcements eat more. Build in a buffer of about ten per cent and mark each part MUST, SHOULD or COULD, so that when time disappears you cut the COULD parts first and the practice never goes.
Examples from the classroom
From topic to product
Scene. Dilnoza in Tashkent is asked to run a session on 'types of assessment'. She applies the film test and rewrites the outcome: 'By 4 o'clock each teacher will have written two exit questions for a lesson next week and chosen the day to try them.' The agenda changes at once: a short example of an exit ticket, ten minutes of paired writing, and a pair review. The session no longer needs forty slides.
Insight. Writing the outcome as a product forces the agenda to include time for making it.
The cut line saves the practice
Scene. Malika runs a 150-minute session in Samarkand in the week of Navruz. The head speaks for ten minutes at the start, and two teachers arrive fifteen minutes late. Malika has marked the gallery walk and the second example COULD. She drops both, keeps the 40 minutes of paired practice and the 30-minute planning clinic, and ends on time. Colleagues leave with a plan for Monday.
Insight. Deciding what to cut in advance protects the parts of the session that change practice.
A session that needs no power
Scene. In a rural school near Bukhara, Jasur plans a session on writing explaining questions. The power cuts out ten minutes before the start. Because everything is on paper (six printed sample questions to sort, a blank planning card and a one-page example), the session begins on time by the window. Colleagues sort the cards in trios, rewrite two questions and fill in the cards by hand.
Insight. A paper-based design is robust: the activity does not depend on the equipment.
Common pitfalls
- Writing outcomes in the trainer's voice ('I will present...') instead of what each teacher will do.
- Planning five or six activities in a two-hour session and forgetting the minutes lost in transitions.
- Keeping all the content and cutting the practice when time runs short.
- Ending with 'any questions?' instead of a commitment to try something by a date.
Rewrite the Outcomes, Repair the Agenda
- Open the Activity Kit: three weak SAMPLE outcomes and a flawed 150-minute SAMPLE agenda. (5 min)
- Pairs (12 min): rewrite the three outcomes so that each says what a teacher will do and can be seen. Then write two or three outcomes for the need you named in session 1.
- Pairs (18 min): use the blank agenda grid to repair the flawed agenda or design your own: parts, minutes, what colleagues DO, product on paper, MUST/SHOULD/COULD. Choose three activities from the menu.
- Second short activity, Swap and test (10 min): swap agendas with another pair. Ask three questions: Who works most? What will each person have on paper? What do we cut if 20 minutes are lost? Write one suggestion on a sticky note.
- Whole group (10 min): each pair names one change they made to the agenda and why. The facilitator notes patterns on the board.
- Alone (7 min): write your school-based task from the Kit.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- Which of your new outcomes can an observer see, and which still hides behind 'understand'?
- How many minutes does the facilitator speak in your agenda, and how many do colleagues work?
- What is your cut line if time runs short, and who will keep the time?
Reflect
- Think of a session you led or attended where people mostly listened. What could they have done instead?
- Which activity from the menu would your colleagues enjoy, and which would feel childish to them?
- What would you need from the head teacher to protect 150 minutes?
Try it tomorrow
- Rewrite the outcome of your next session so that it passes the film, tomorrow and evidence tests.
- Colour the minutes of a plan you already have: how many are colleagues working and how many are you talking?
- Mark every part of your agenda MUST, SHOULD or COULD and decide your cut line before the day.
Further reading and links
Write outcomes that can be seen, keep input short, give most minutes to practice and planning, and decide in advance what to cut.