Tips for Presenting a Newsroom Workshop

If you're an experienced journalist but not an experienced teacher, these do's and don'ts can help you organize and present a workshop for other journalists:

Do …

• Have clear, succinct and focused objectives. Here's one useful way to frame them: "At the end of this class, participants will know X or have X skills." Three objectives are about right for a typical 60- or 90-minute workshop, and they should be the same ones used to promote it and introduce it. Outline your objectives at the start of your presentation, return to them one by one as you progress, and review them at the end. It's acliché, but it really works: Tell them you're going to tell them; tell them; then tell them that you told them.
  
• Have a "hook" to get people comfortable with your topic: a true (ideally humorous) story; one or more central examples; or audience involvement that sets the stage.
  
• Develop structured notes that incorporate main points, anecdotes, examples, case studies and discussions in a logical progression. Allow a set amount of time for each section of your presentation. Rehearse your presentation - preferably in the place you're planning to do it. Winging it is always a bad idea.
  
• Include visual aids (preferably simple ones) that allow you to highlight what's important and to complement your own voice.
  
• Engage audience members with discussions, exercises, even games - whatever it takes to get them involved so that you don't spend the whole time preaching. In successful professional development, the leader shares the material and then engages participants in "reconstructing" it in ways that build a bridge back to their jobs. They learn not just by listening to your ideas but by practicing them. Remember this sequence:
  Discussion —> Practice —> Feedback —> Application
  An often successful (though probably overused) technique is to break the group into smaller teams for exercises and feedback, then have the teams report on their results. If you do this, limit teams to five and provide specific instructions and expectations.
  
• Consider providing advance reading or some other preparation - enough to get participants committed without overloading them. Make clear what the purpose of the homework is and how participants are expected to use it. An article that uses a particular storytelling technique, for example, can be a springboard for discussion in a writing workshop.
  
• Vary the pace. Move from lecture to visual aids to an exercise to a break and back to lecture so that the class doesn't become monotonous. Vary your inflection, use hand gestures and move around the front of the room to keep your presentation active. Smile and make eye contact with the people in the room. If you seem to be having a good time, it's more likely that others will.
  
• Anticipate questions based on your outline, and be ready to answer them. Restate the question before answering it if you're in a large group so that everyone can hear it. Consider using the "volleyball" technique to involve your audience: Throw the question back to the group and ask for their ideas and solutions.
  
• Offer handouts that summarize your material and build a bridge back to the job. Handouts make a workshop both portable and lasting.
  
• Provide a selective bibliography of books, articles, videos and Web sites that participants can use for further learning.
  
• Arrive early and give yourself time to fix problems before your audience sees them.
  
• End on time after summarizing your main points. Consider using a "call to action" that challenges your participants to apply your advice in their next story, photograph or page design.

Don't …

• Begin by wondering aloud why you were asked to teach a class or by otherwise apologizing for your presence. Such modesty usually comes across as fear or bewilderment, and everything will be downhill from there.
  
• Spend the workshop reading or walking through a handout that you've distributed at the start. It's tedious - and participants could have simply read it on their own. Instead, make the handout an outline of your main points and distribute it at the end for reference.
  
• Overwhelm participants with binders full of handouts. A few salient tips are much more likely to be read - and maybe even used on deadline.
  
• Fall victim to nervous mannerisms, such as fiddling with pocket change or jewelry. Your participants will focus on that instead of what you're teaching.
  
• Make visual aids the star of your show. They work best as an accent that helps you emphasize your main points. Your power as a workshop leader is in your interaction with the group, not in your visual aids.
  
• Rely on technology for your success. Videos, slide shows and PowerPoint presentations require equipment that often doesn't work when you need it - and there may be no worse way to die on stage. Often a simple flip chart and handouts will work just as well. If you do want to use technology, always have a backup plan.
  
• Curse or tell off-color jokes. You never know if you're going to make someone in your audience uncomfortable.
  
• Wait to train until you have perfection. Use the "80 percent" rule. When you're 80 percent ready to train, go ahead. The last 20 percent takes a lot more preparation time without much improvement in the presentation.
  
• Critique the work of individuals in a group setting. Hardly anyone is thick-skinned enough to handle it. Instead, use examples from other publications, rewrite an example to mask the author's identity or invite the author to discuss the work's pros and cons.
  
• End with questions and answers. You won't be in control of how the final moments unfold, and they can be critical in getting people to apply your advice.