Instructor Guidance

Knox Makers is, at its core, an educational non-profit organization. Classes and workshops that are offered at Knox Makers are the most public-facing aspect of the organization. A well organized class or workshop with a prepared presenter gives all the attendees a great learning experience and exposure to something that they may not have known before. Additionally, quality classes and workshops show off the value of Knox Makers and its amazing community of makers. Conversely, poor quality classes do not give attendees a great experience and reflect poorly on the organization as a whole. The information presented here is intended to provide guidance for potential presenters who may be interested in leading a class or workshop at Knox Makers. It should help presenters understand the different types of presentations at Knox Makers, set expectations for each type, as well as the scope and level of effort of each of those presentations.

Presentation Types

There are two main types of presentations commonly offered at Knox Makers: classes and workshops. The difference is the participation level of the audience, and are defined as follows:

• Class: Primarily a lecture-style presentation, where information is presented, and the audience is largely a passive observer. The participation of the audience will rarely exceed asking questions of the presenter. The audience will mainly be focused on the presenter.
• Workshop: Primarily a hands-on lab style presentation, where members of the audience are expected to perform some activity, make something, or otherwise have focus on something other than the presenter.

The following section presents different types of classes and workshops, with some details and examples that may be helpful when preparing a presentation. We do not want to discourage people from experimenting with format in their presenations. The details and examples presented below are not intended to be a complete list of all possible presentations, but do include experiences about types of presentations that have not worked well in the past.

One particular distinction is noted for Tuesday nights. Tuesday nights are the regularly scheduled meetings for Knox Makers. We have a tradition going back a few years of having a presentation on a Tuesday night that is free and open to the public, and it is a tradition that Knox Makers intends to continue.

Tuesday Night

The Tuesday night event is intended to be a free and open to the public presentation. Being a regularly scheduled event, the Tuesday night presentation tends to have the highest turn out of any event. As of December 2016, attendance is usually between 30 and 70 people. Because it tends to have a very large attendance, and the audience can include many first-time attendees, it tends to be more focused on introductory classes. Workshops can work on Tuesdays, but they need to be able to scale well, with lots of parallel paths for hands-on.