This past summer marked the addition of a full day of workshops to the CS&IT Symposium. More than 120 individuals attended morning and afternoon sessions on a variety of topics, such as BYOB Scratch, Google AppInventor, Videogame Programming, and AP Teaching. I’m happy to report that the day was very successful, with 97% of attendees rating “Session effectiveness” as either Good or Excellent, and 98% of attendees rating “Met expectations” as either Good or Excellent. Thank you to all of the session presenters who made the first CS&IT Workshop Day go so well.
The experience of chairing the workshop sessions prompted me to reflect on workshops that I have attended over the years. Many have been instructive and inspiring, but others have been demoralizing wastes of time. To me, an effective workshop has to have a significant hands-on component, but it also has to provide enough conceptual content to allow me to build upon what I have done. If it doesn’t enable me to continue learning on my own afterwards, it is really nothing more than a few hours of entertainment and/or confinement.
For example, I attended an outstanding workshop some years ago on Bioinformatics Education. The session integrated engaging hands-on exercises, but also provided conceptual background and resources for going beyond the exercises. It inspired me to dig deeper into the material once I got home, and I learned more after the workshop than I did in those few in-class hours. In contrast, a disappointing App Development workshop I attended led me through the development of some really cool applications, but no conceptual understanding of what I was doing. I left the workshop with some impressive apps, but absolutely no idea how I would do anything else.
I’m curious how other people view workshops.
What do you look for when you register for a workshop?
What features do you think are necessary for a workshop to be effective?
What are the biggest mistakes that you think workshop presenters make?
Please share your thought, and if you have a great workshop that you have attended and want to plug, have at it.
Dave Reed
CSTA Board of Directors
College Representative