Many of the activities discussed in this book may be unfamiliar to teachers or require some degree of planning if they are to be successfully implemented. In our experience, a workshop is often the best way of exploring what a particular professional activity, such as action research, consists of, what its pros and cons are, andwhether it might be of interest to teachers.Workshops, however, are often hit-or-miss affairs and are sometimes thrown together without a great deal of preliminary thought or planning. In view of the important role workshops can have in preparing teachers for different kinds of professional development initiatives, in this chapter we will examine the nature of workshops and suggest ways in which they can be used to support some of the activities we discuss throughout the book.

What are workshops?

A workshop is an intensive, short-term learning activity that is designed to provide an opportunity to acquire specific knowledge and skills. In a workshop, participants are expected to learn something that they can later apply in the classroom and to get hands-on experience with the topic, such as developing procedures for classroom observation or conducting action research. Workshops can also provide opportunities for participants to examine their beliefs or perspectives on teaching and learning, and use this process to reflect on their own teaching practices. Workshops can address issues related to both institutional improvement and individual development and they are led by a person who is considered an expert and who has relevant experience in the workshop topic. In our experience, workshop-based learning is particularly suitable for teachers because workshops can be scheduled outside of class time (e.g., on a Saturday).