Taught another workshop today where I went overtime. I know that time management is definitely an area for me to improve upon. However today I strongly re-considered reducing the workshop contents. I am definitely greedy with the contents, trying very hard to squeeze in as much as possible within those limited 60- 90 minutes. I always face a time-crunch whenever the class gets interesting. No matter how hard I try to stick to just the relevant questions (and save the rest for later) I always get too many questions to ignore during an interesting session. Of course I also have to cater to the "takes-longer-to-get-it" attendees especially since I get a real diverse group for most workshops.
Actually this had been on my mind for a while. As a result, this quarter, I decided to re-order some of the contents. Although I still save the "best" for the end, I included a sneak peek of it at the very beginning so that even those who have to leave a little early would have an idea of what they are missing (like a movie where you see the ending at the very beginning; so even if you miss out on the last few minutes you can guess what you missed).
Anyways, after all the re-thinking, I finally decided to retain the "excess" contents - at least for the time being. What convinced me was going over my past feedback (again). If 69% say that the workshop duration was "just right" and 24% feel that it was "too short", then may be I am not doing a bad job by including those extra stuff. Also, considering over 93% rate the effectiveness of the sessions "Good / Excellent", I probably shouldn't try something drastic anyways.
I sometimes wish I had a full course to handle instead of these workshops. That would give me a lot more control and flexibility over the contents - I could always push stuff over for the next class if necessary! I also think it would be a nice change and offer fresh challenges. I wish the college were more open to allowing grad students to teach classes.
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