Special Session: Workshops that Work! Using Evidence-Based Principles for Inclusive and Engaging Workshop Development and Facilitation

Workshops (or special sessions) have been a staple of dissemination practices and professional development activities for many years. However, not all workshops create positive experiences for their participants. What makes a workshop work? In this special session, we will demonstrate and highlight how to use evidence-based principles to create inclusive and engaging workshops. Throughout the workshop, we will encourage participants to reflect on previous workshop activities and what made them more or less effective. From there, participants will put their workshop development skills to the test with a fun activity to apply different workshop tips to randomly assigned workshop topics and audiences! The workshop facilitators have designed the workshop to highlight the different recommended strategies. We propose that by using these evidence-based inclusive educational practices, professional development efforts like workshops would be more engaging.