What is a Workshop?

What is a Workshop?

A workshop is one of the most frequently used concepts in recent years. The Turkish equivalent of the word 'workshop' refers to a training classroom or seminar where individuals or groups work to gain practical experience and solve real-world tasks. The duration of workshop activities varies from 45 minutes to 2 days. Participants in these educational programs, designed to teach or introduce a topic, learn skills, techniques, and ideas that they can use in their daily or professional lives. To briefly explain what a workshop is in light of all this information; it is generally defined as short-term training conducted with few participants, focused on a particular topic, and led by an expert trainer.

What are the Features of a Workshop?

When the question of 'what is a workshop event, how is it conducted' is asked, there could be many answers depending on the theme or content of the workshop. Although there are various definitions, there are rules and features that are present in every workshop event. Here are some of these features:

• The number of participants in workshop events usually ranges from 6 to 15 people. This number allows the trainer to communicate with everyone during the workshop and provide personal attention to each individual
   
• Workshop activities are generally conducted by an expert. However, if participation in the workshop will be high, there should be more than one trainer in the workshop event for the training of the participants.
   
• The purpose of the event is as curious as the question 'what is a workshop'. One of the most important features of workshop studies is that they are goal-oriented. What is to be achieved at the end of the workshop should be determined in a tangible way.
   
• After determining the purpose of the workshop, identifying the target audience is one of the most critical rules. It is very important to clearly identify the target audience and to take every factor into account when identifying it.
   
• The type of the workshop event should be determined. That is, whether a theoretical or practical learning method will be applied should be informed to the participants in advance.
   
• The content of the workshop event, the duration of the event should be clarified in advance and participants should be informed beforehand.

In Which Areas are Workshops Organized?

Workshop activities can be conducted on many topics. Here are some examples of workshops:

• Basic Cooking Workshops: Basic cooking workshops conducted by special kitchen academies are usually held in a kitchen with a capacity of 8 or 10 people. Instructors provide detailed information about knife usage and the correct use of pans and pots in cooking during these workshops, which typically last a few hours. Participants then move on to the application stage with this theoretical knowledge.
   
• Design Thinking Workshop: Design thinking stands out as an effective problem-solving method. The method, developed at Stanford Institute of Design, is used by many institutions in the world and Turkey in the process of redesigning products, services, or ways of doing business with a human-centered approach. Through this workshop, participants will have fun gaining experience on a topic they see as critical for themselves or their institutions and will acquire new learnings.
   
• Waste Materials (Take the Initiative) Workshop: This workshop raises awareness among participants about the use of waste materials and recycling. During the workshop, participants are divided into 4 groups and they recreate the spaces they have formed in their minds using waste materials, with the selection of stories from Italo Calvino's book "Invisible Cities". During the reconstruction, the trainer imposes some limiting rules and in this way, different and creative ways of thinking of the participants are triggered.

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