Here are some last things to consider:
+ Will you ask participants to evaluate the experience? You need not consider this a requirement or an obligation: ask for feedback and/or an evaluation only if you feel like doing so. However, you should ask for an endorsement. You can ask for it in the following way, at the end of your time together: “I’d love to have you write me an endorsement of this workshop, if you enjoyed it, that I can use on my website and in my marketing materials. Can you take a minute and write me one?” You can also invite them to provide the endorsement after they get home—but you’re relatively unlikely to receive many once participants return to their regular life. Getting the endorsement “on the spot” is a good idea.
+ Whether or not you invite participants to assess their experience of the event, you should spend some time assessing the experience yourself. Did you present too little material? Did you present too much? Did you manage to go deep or did the event feel superficial? Did participants get involved or remain at arms’ length? What might you do differently next time? Was your living room a viable location? Did you really need to pay for a whiteboard? Was the venue too cold (either temperature-wise or atmospherically)? In as little as five or ten minutes, if you are willing to take the time, you can provide yourself with important feedback about the event and many concrete suggestions for improving it.
+ If this is your first art class, workshop or retreat you may have a lot of things to consider when the event ends. You may have learned that this is exactly the right material to be teaching, you may have learned that the material or the presentation needs major reworking, or you may have learned that you didn’t enjoy teaching this material at all and prefer to try your hand at something new the next time. You may have complaints to process; you may feel exhausted and wonder if teaching is simply too tiring to be worth the effort; you may have some serious doubts about your readiness to do this sort of work or your taste or your talent for it. It is natural to have a less that perfect experience the first time out! Try not to dismiss teaching if this teaching experience didn’t go beautifully. It really will go better as you gain more experience.
Good luck organizing and running your art class, workshop or retreat!
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You may be interested in Dr. Maisel’s low-cost, pick-your-own-price class for artists called The 12 Keys to Creativity; or a second one called Overcoming Creative Anxiety. Check them out here:
The 12 Keys to Creativity
https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=100&aff=
Overcoming Creative Anxiety
https://www.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/courses/courseoverview.cgi?cid=48&aff=