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CityU UnConference

TEACH Sessions

* Prepared by CityU MC students: Marcus Narsaiya and Barb Baker 

TEACH sessions (live only) (30-40 minutes) – In the process of your research have you developed or come across hands-on tutorials, practical tools/exercises, or embodied practices related to your capstone that you would like to teach us? This is an opportunity for you to share with us diverse mediums in counselling (e.g., roleplay modalities, grounding exercises, sandplay and art), and more dynamic ways of presenting your research (e.g., experiential workshops, reflection circles)   

Timing Tips 

Think like a paper: an intro, body and conclusion  

Intro – 2-5 minutes  

  • Who are you?  

  • Create a safe space  

  • What are you talking about? Why is it relevant? What does it mean to you? 

  • What can people expect to take away, a brief agenda of what your presentation will entail  

  • Explain how you would like others to participate? Hands up, in the chat, shout it out? 

Body – 15-20 minutes  

  • Practice your timing and pacing  

  • Record yourself or have someone watch you 

  • Provide background information – what is the purpose of your activity 

  • Provide clear steps or instructions to your activity, be as clear you can and ask for feedback or questions  

  • Host your activity  

  • Debrief the activity/what learning happened? 

Conclusion – 2-5 minutes  

  • Engage the group, what takeaways have been established for everyone? What are some outstanding questions that people are coming across? 

  • Review or summary of key points and takeaways  

  • Thank everybody for attending and participating  

Conceptualizing a Workshop from Start to End   

  • Plan the workshop with the takeaway in mind à why are people coming? What is it you really want them to walk away with? 

  • Plan your welcome – what’s the agenda and logistics participants can expect from your shared time together today? 

  • Warm the group up to participate – get people talking, maybe even have them answer what they are attending today for. Shorter icebreakers are a great way to pick up the energy of a room here.  

  • Provide background information à why is the activity we are about to experience beneficial? What gaps in knowledge or skills can it help to bridge for your attendants? 

  • Demo the activity à if it is complicated, you may want to engage someone in a participating a demonstration to break down the interaction barriers and create a visual modelling of what an observer would hope to see if they are to see participants engaging. Be as visual as possible. 

  • Give clear directions, break down key elements of the demo you want participants to focus on.  

  • Have the participants experience the learning experience. You may have two learning sequences in your workshop, or maybe what you are trying to have participants learn is simple enough you only need 1 activity. Activity time can be anywhere from 30% to 50% of your workshop’s total duration. (Make sure you are leaving time for questions at the end, even if only to spark further discussion in a later session – this may even be a question posed by you to the group)  

  • Reflect on the activity and collect feedback à what did participants learn? Where there any difficulties or areas of confusion or resistance? What would have helped? What about the activity was most transformational? 

*Remember – you have framed your activity as a skill or competency that serves a current gap in practice or experience which participants should now have the resources to fill.  

  • Closing – prime further discussion and interaction by prompting a short discussion individuals may want to expand with you later to continue the learning and further discussions about the topic.  

  • Remember – diving deep into work in a public forum takes courage – both your own and that of the participants. Be active in holding the space as a safe space to share ideas and be vulnerable, and everyone will engage and participate.  

Additional Presentation Tips  

  • Use interactive software such as slido, ClassFlow, Mentimeter, Prezzi, Kahoot!,  

  • Make your presentation in GoogleSlides so that it will be compatible across all platforms  

Charts  

  • Data is stored in excel, you can create in excel and import, or you can create in PowerPoint, and it will create an excel doc for you  

  • You must change the data in excel to change the chart  

  • Highlight data to change colours, use arrow keys to expand your field or change the size of data bars 

Tools and Resources