# Making the workshop interactive

## Start with an ice breaker

* Begin the workshop with an exercise that forces participants to converse with their neighbours.
* Reproducibility Ice Breaker Example:<br>
  * Set a timer for 3 minutes.
  * Tell the participants to create a line across the room in order of how recently they coded for research.
  * Participants need to speak to one another to establish where they fit in the chronological line.
  * Invite those with more coding experience to support those with less during the workshop exercises.

### Minimize the time spent lecturing

* Provide participants with basic background and definitions to ensure they are building their learning upon a correct foundation.
* Beyond that foundation, minimize lecturing and theory. Instead, introduce curated resources that allow participants to dive into theory themselves.
* Prioritize hands-on learning and exercises that take advantage of being in the same room as the participants.

### Establish a communication system

* Design a communication system for participants that allows them to signal questions and problems passively.
* Reproducibility Communication System Example:<br>
  * Bring enough green and pink post-it notes for each participant to have one of each.
  * At the beginning of each exercise, request that each participant  place the pink post-it on their laptop.
  * Participants switch the pink post-it to a green post-it when they complete the exercise.
  * This allows people encountering problems to communicate their issues passively, ensuring that shy participants are not left behind.

### Provide safe opportunities for interaction

* Include opportunities for participants to share experiences and feedback during the workshop. Ensure these opportunities are well structured and focus on low-risk questions to allow all participants to equally participate. Low-risk questions are questions that avoid sensitive or divisive topics and for which any answer is equally valued by the audience and all answers are unlikely to include value judgements.
* Reproducibility Interactive Question Examples:<br>
  * Have you ever had difficulties reproducing the work of another researcher? Yes or No?
  * Have you ever had difficulties producing your own work on a later date? Yes or No?
  * What language do you use most frequently for your research?