Tools for Popular Education Design
Designing a workshop is like taking a paintbrush to a blank piece of paper. You can make anything happen! The design is an outline of what you want to do and when you want it to happen in the workshop.
The following are a few tools you can use to design activities and workshops. Remember that these are just guidelines meant to help you think through the important questions. Feel free to adapt them to suit the needs of your girls’ program.
1. Activity Outline Template
The first tool is an Activity Outline Template, an example of which can be found on in Appendix 2. It will guide you through the details for planning and describing each activity within a workshop. This tool also helps you stay in touch with why you are doing an activity and prompts you to think through how to adapt it. For example, you may want to make an activity easier or more complex.
2. The Loom: Detailed Activity Breakdown
The second tool is the Sample Workshop Outline: The Loom! Detailed Activity Breakdown, which can be found on in Appendix 2. This is a tool used to detail the sequence of activities for a workshop or session. This helps you look at your overall objectives for the session and put together a flow of activities that balance elements such as: hands-on versus reflective, individual/small group versus large group, and deep thinking versus just-for-fun activities.
This tool also helps you remember what supplies you need to have on hand and to track the time you will need for each part of the session. The activity template or loom includes an example activity, followed by a blank version you can use for your own planning purposes. These tools are templates for you to photocopy and fill in. You should keep them close to you during a workshop!
In the Sample Workshop Outline: The Loom! Detailed Activity Breakdown in Appendix 2 you will also find activities that you can use and adapt, as well as a completed loom with a sample workshop that incorporates a number of activities.
