The end of the event

Event Pack Down

• Once the students have been released, the tutors can start to pack up the event space. This includes the following steps

  • Throwing out used materials that can’t be used again (e.g. cheat sheets with writing on them, workbooks).

  • Gathering any resources that need to be stored for future events (e.g. extra shirts, clean cheat sheets, unused name tags).

  • Gathering leftover snacks.

  • Returning anything that’s stored at the venue to the right place.

• Many tutors will be leaving at this point, so it’s a good time to thank them and say goodbye, or answer any questions/discuss any comments they may have while you direct tutors who can stay longer on what needs to be packed up or where things go. 

Debrief

The debrief’s purpose is to give the tutors a chance to give feedback on the event and feel a sense of ownership over what goes on at GPN. We put a lot of thought into how and why we do things the way we do them, but GPN is an ever-evolving program, and we want to hear everyone’s ideas on how to keep getting better!

• Once packup is done, gather all remaining tutors into a room with the leftover snacks (encourage the tutors to eat them so they don’t go to waste) 

• Here is a format you can use to run the debrief, but feel free to experiment with this to see what the best way to get feedback from your volunteers is.

  • First we ask the tutors to think about the whole event, and we have ~3-5 minutes of quiet for them to write any thoughts of what went well/didn’t go so well on their phone. We prompt them to think about all the parts of the event (e.g. communication in the lead up, morning jobs, welcome speech, morning lab session etc.) 

  • While they are writing their thoughts, make a new google doc in the event folder and name it “Tutor debrief” and put the following headings (skip any that don’t apply to the scale of your node):

    • Before the day

    • Morning Jobs

      • Streaming Quiz

      • Lab setup

      • Foyer greeting

      • Morning games

      • Tutor greeting

    • Welcome speech

    • Classroom time / content

    • Lunch

    • After lunch activities

      • Computerless games

      • Mentor hangz

    • Packup

    • Other

  • Once the tutors have had a chance to write their thoughts, use the headings to prompt them to share (e.g. “Does anyone have feedback on things that happened before the day”). 

  • As the tutors are sharing their feedback, take notes under the appropriate header - it’s alright if the discussion moves around a bit and you add notes out of order.

  • Try not to get too caught up in finding solutions to problems - if someone has an idea for how to solve a problem then add that to the notes and keep note of any discussions around it, but it’s also great to just have the issue and we can bring that to the node committee or Australia committee to find a solution or understand why things have been set up in a particular way (and if that is still serving us).

  • Whenever the conversation naturally dies down, bring it back to the headings and prompt the room to see if there is anything else under the current heading, and then move on to the next one when there’s nothing else to cover. 

• Once you’ve captured all the feedback, share the end of day survey results with the tutors - it’s great for them to see the impact that they had throughout the day. You can all gather around a laptop or use a projector to show the results of the survey. It’s fun to read out and point attention to some of the text field answers as well, especially the “what do you like about the tutors” one or if any of the students has given a tutor a special shout out!

• Try and get the tutors to take the leftover snacks home so that we don’t waste food!

• Make sure you thank all the tutors for their time and energy - we can’t run GPN without them and it’s important that they know it! You can also mention the next date so that they can mark their calendars if you know what it is, hopefully they are hyped from helping out and are keen to come again!