Designing, Implementing and Evaluating Oral History Workshop

Mohammad-Mehdi Abdollahzadeh
Translated by Ruhollah Golmoradi

2017-10-24

Triumph of Islamic Revolution in our country and then imposition of a full-scale war for eight years led many enthusiasts to address "oral history of the revolution and the sacred defense" to be able to respond to some of necessary needs in this part. Those who entered this field some had history-related education, some had a university degree in related disciplines, and some did not have any of these features. Certainly neediness and sense of responsibility and interest on the other hand led the people who carried out duties in field of oral history and lacked necessary knowledge and experience in this field, possessed necessary qualifications, with diligence and sometimes error, and produced also some works.

In this context, holding oral history courses, classes and workshops can help developing knowledge and skills of those who are active in this field and updating knowledge and skills of practitioners. Workshops are welcomed for its features. Of features of this style of education is that all of participants are active in the workshop, and everyone learns from each other. Also, establishing a relationship between content, subject and experiences of participants causes members of the workshops to share themselves in training.

A workshop consists of group discussion sessions, in which a set of educational activities is designed and implemented for people associated with a particular discipline. The purpose of this method of training is to carefully examine dimensions of a subject and to solve involved issues.

A workshop is designed and held to provide short and useful educational content in a short time. One of characteristics of workshop is that theoretical concepts are accompanied with practical activities. Therefore, in workshop, distance between theory and practice is eliminated and theory is background and basis of practice.

If principles of holding this style of education are not followed and participants are only listener and do not engage in discussion and doing proper activities, it would be just in name a workshop, and in practice, lecture-style training would be done.

Necessary steps

Holding workshop has three stages of designing, implementing and evaluating. Therefore, effectiveness of each workshop depends on successful execution of each stage. Doing the following steps will help to hold an effective workshop:

1. The first step in planning any kind of training is needs assessment; because designated educational needs are result of educational goals. These goals should be developed in such a way that they can be used as end-of-term evaluation criteria. It is also possible to compile workshop content based on individual and group characteristics and audience needs. Level of familiarity of participants with the subject helps designers and implementers of training plan to design and implement a more effective workshop. In determining educational goals and developing human resources, we need to answer these questions:

A. Which behaviors do we want to create in learners?

B. In what conditions these behaviors should occur?

C - What is our criterion for measuring these behaviors? [[1]]

2 – To define specific title of the workshop. Title of the workshop determines our goal of its holding. We should know what new knowledge and skills participants will gain when they leave the workshop. For example, one of plans of compiling oral history workshop could be that participants know what to do with the narrator's catchphrase. The specific title of the workshop provides learners with the opportunity to find solutions to problems they encounter during working.

3 – To define the participants. This definition should represent their level of knowledge and skills in our field. Based on the definition, the workshop instructor can define teaching style of the workshop.

4. To determine training style. In a workshop regarding variety of goals, workshop coach will use different methods in proper situations. Also, using group discussions in many situations could have positive outcomes. In some cases, it is necessary to divide participants in workshop into a number of teams in order to allow individuals to discuss the topic according to presented theoretical discussion in the meetings. In this case, one person from each team should report the results.

5. To determine time of each activity. By assigning time to activities we need to do in the workshop, at the end of the workshop, we would have reached desired goals and, on the other hand, we would have not faced with additional time. In other words, we are successful in managing time. It must be cared in implementing the workshop to start programs at the appointed time. To prevent irrelevant and marginal questions, and presenting lectures and Q&A, timeout and service be on time. We also have to use times that people are ready and in good mood; for example, immediately after lunch is not a good time to work in workshop.

6. To determine complementary educational tools. The workshop coach will use these tools in appropriate situations. These tools may contain a number of computers with accessories, pictures, documents, and more.

7. To provide suitable environment for the workshop. We need to consider an environment that is appropriate to theme of the workshop, and most importantly, teamwork for the course members to be possible.

8. Evaluation of learning in the workshop should be in a way that has an easy implementing and scoring. On the other hand, it should be somehow that its results to be presentable for learners.

9. At the end of the workshop, using a survey, we will be informed about learner ideas about taught content, teaching style, interaction between learners and masters, and other related things to workshops, so that we could use them in similar cases.

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