A few weeks ago I ran a workshop in which I changed up the way that I paced the session. What I’ve almost always done is give a little instruction then time to try and complete a little practice activity. Then I’ll hold a little debrief before moving onto the next activity. It’s a pretty common format that I’m sure you also learned in one of the methods courses that you took at some point.
What I did differently in my workshop a few weeks ago was to use Focusable to pace the workshop. Specifically, I used Focusable to keep track of the blocks of work time. When the time was up I then had everyone follow along with the breathing exercise that Focusable suggested before we did the debrief. I then summarized the debrief in a video in Focusable before moving onto the next workshop activity.
I found that having everyone participate in the Focusable breathing and recharge activities was a better way of getting everyone’s attention than using the old method of saying something like, “okay, let’s talk about this.” Perhaps it was just the novelty of following along with the breathing exercise, but it worked well for refocusing the group for a short discussion. It’s definitely something that I’ll do again in future workshops.
Speaking of workshops, I’d love to run a workshop at your school this summer. To learn more about that, please visit this page or send me an email at richard (at) byrne.media
Video – How to Use Focusable
