Teaching Your Tutorial: Overview

Use an online tool, or provide an online backup option, if you can.

Aim for 2-4 sentences; keep it under 100 words.

  • Who should take this workshop? What type of people would be interested or benefit?

  • What problems will this workshop help people solve?

  • What will participants learn how to do?

List prerequisites (knowledge or experience you're assuming learners already have) even if there aren't any.

  • Set expectations in during registration/advertising about when you will send the materials and any other information such as a Zoom link.

  • If needed, provide software installation instructions and a way for learners to get help with installation problems outside of the workshop time. Better yet, use an online tool for teaching if you can.

  • Create a welcome slide/screen so that when people connect, they know they're in the right place and anything they need to do to get set up

  • Introduce yourself at the beginning

  • Magnify your screen so it's easier for people to see -- yes, even screen share via Zoom

  • Set expectations: Tell participants what you expect in terms of interactions and how/when they can ask questions

5. Prepare: Content Questions

  • What are questions you anticipate learners may have? Address these questions in the tutorial materials, or prepare to answer them if they're in scope for your topic.

  • Think about what topics or concepts you may not want to discuss -- questions that may be above or below the level for your tutorial or outside of the scope. Prepare yourself to say something like: "that's outside the scope of this workshop, but I'd be happy to talk to you about that separately later."

6. Practice

Practice giving your tutorial, even if just to yourself. You can also record yourself. Time how long it takes -- it will take longer when you teach it to other people.

You don't want to read text that you include in your file, but make sure you have enough notes and cues included so that you remember the key points you want to make. This also helped learners because you've given them the scaffolding of notes in the file as well. It can be helpful to write out a script (or speak and record one) to help you focus, but again, don't read this while actually teaching.

See more Tips for Teaching for other helpful practices.

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