Next week, I’ll be facilitating a presentation and discussion on the reproductive justice framework for a client organization that provides health services to underserved individuals and their families along with partnering with community-based organizations and government agencies.
The client’s project is a learning collaborative that brings together local healthcare providers to adopt best practices for the provision of contraception within primary care, post-abortion, and postpartum settings.
It’s been a while since I’ve presented on RJ for an audience like this, and I’m pretty excited about it. So much so, that it’s reminded me of my goal for creating a Try This blog around the topic of context versus content.
In short, content is what you talk about, while context is how you talk about it.
Think about a glass of water. The content is the water while the glass is the context. Like a glass of water, the content of your workshop (the activities, group discussions, etc.) is contained within the context (or topic of the workshop).
In my case, the content of my presentation is RJ, but I’m presenting the information within the context of clinical and primary care settings.
However, in the client’s case, the participants in the learning collaborative will be looking at how they can provide patient-centered care (content) within the context of RJ.
Another way to look at this consider context within the context (haha) of big-picture thinking. Context is the surrounding atmosphere, the circumstances, perspectives, and intentions that form the foundation of the topic. Content is the activities, details, and events.
This activity is ideal for:
- Anyone who has a workshop, presentation or training coming up and you’re tired of throwing together haphazard workshops, presentations
and trainings
Here’s what you need:
- Sheets of paper or an erasable whiteboard
- Writing utensils (pens, pencils, markers, or dry erase markers)
The steps:
Take your preferred writing utensil and either a sheet of paper or erasable whiteboard and create a diagram, like this:
At the top, identify the workshop topic.
Under “Context”, list out the circumstances, perspectives, and intentions that form the foundation of the workshop topic.
Next, under “Content”, list out the structure of the workshop along with the associated activities.
Let’s process what we have:
Now that you’ve identified the context and content of your workshop, let’s do some processing by responding to these discussion questions:
- How can the context be used to develop the learning objectives of the workshop’s content?
- How can the workshop’s content be tied back to the overall context?
Key takeaway
It can be very tempting to pull together a workshop without a formal structure. When you identify the context and content of your workshop, you can stay on topic while also helping your participants think critically as they’ll have a better understanding of the bigger picture. Try this activity and let me know how it goes for you.
Raise Your Voice: How can you use this process to strengthen your workshop structure and activities? Share below in the comments section.
