So yesterday was the Youth Workforce Innovations Conference 2011. This is one of those events that is actually a huge amount of work, because we are also part of the project planning on top of doing the presentation on the day-of. So in preparation I had to secure 14(!) volunteers to help guide groups of students from one destination to the next. Each department is typically responsible for 5-7 volunteers, but we were also covering one of the other presentations as well as helping over a third one who was unable to secure volunteers. As you may guess, in a program as small as Imaging Science, it can be quite difficult to secure so many willing student volunteers. So, I bribed them with Dibellas. It worked, and I got all 14 that I needed. I then had to organize them all and assign them start and end points, and for each of them create signs and corresponding maps so they would all know where they were going. It was a lot of work, but so far as I know all of the walking around campus went smoothly, so I think all that preparation paid off.
The presentations themselves were pretty much what I expected. We only got 9 students attending the first session, and more like 20 in the second. I actually preferred the first session greatly - maybe it was the timing, maybe it was the number of kids, maybe it was the caliber of the kids who had us as their first choice. Either way, my first presentation was a fabulous success, while on my second one I struggled. I actually had to call out a couple of girls several times over for talking through my presentation, which I have no patience for. They ended up getting split up by one of the teacher chaperons, and were not very happy after that. It will be interesting to see how the post-conference evaluations come out, especially because we have instituted a new online survey. We can't even be sure how much of a response rate we'll get, or whether the kids might be confused by what turned out to be a rather complicated process to fill out the correct surveys.
Workforce Innovations is always such an interesting event, because the dynamics of the audience can be pretty variable and unpredictable. In most settings, I present to a classroom, or an auditorium, or similar type assembly; in these cases, most of the kids will know and be used to each other. But for Workforce Innovations, there are around 10 kids from each school district total, who may or may not be friends, and who may or may not even be in the same sessions. So my audience is typically comprised of various kids who know maybe 1 or 2 other people with them, but often times are on their own. I remember attending events like that in high school, and I hated being without friends. It made me incredibly uncomfortable and unhappy to participate. So is it any wonder that I typically have difficulty getting this particular crowd to pay attention and/or want to participate interactively? I've come to accept and even expect it, but it is still a challenge.
Workforce Innovations is always such an interesting event, because the dynamics of the audience can be pretty variable and unpredictable. In most settings, I present to a classroom, or an auditorium, or similar type assembly; in these cases, most of the kids will know and be used to each other. But for Workforce Innovations, there are around 10 kids from each school district total, who may or may not be friends, and who may or may not even be in the same sessions. So my audience is typically comprised of various kids who know maybe 1 or 2 other people with them, but often times are on their own. I remember attending events like that in high school, and I hated being without friends. It made me incredibly uncomfortable and unhappy to participate. So is it any wonder that I typically have difficulty getting this particular crowd to pay attention and/or want to participate interactively? I've come to accept and even expect it, but it is still a challenge.
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