Before

Prepare and plan your session, you will be much more confident and able to cope with any slip-ups or nervousness
Practice, practice and practice some more: remember, the irony is that the sense of informality comes from hours of practice
Get to your venue/room early so that you can arrange the room in the manner that you want, lay out your teaching materials and orientate yourself to the room if you are not familiar with it
It may be helpful to lay out your handouts or exercise sheets in the order that are to be used.

During

As a session leader you are responsible for telling your delegates where the fire exits are, the toilets and other key information – the coffee machine!
Check your equipment, Overhead Projector, PowerPoint presentation, Flip Chart for position and height.
Check that your AVA’s are in the right place, put on an OHT and walk around the room checking for readability.
Make sure that any loose cables and wires are tucked away.
Get yourself some water or a drink.
If doing a PowerPoint presentation, take a set of overheads just in case! If using PowerPoint, remember that a few “image rich” slides are better than endless slides with too many words on them
Welcome your participants
Look to exude passion, energy, and enthusiasm for your subject, and be aware of falling into “presentation mode” and stiffening up
Introduce yourself and check that people are there for the right session (sounds obvious but it has been known for people to walk into the wrong sessions and have to sit tight until break time, if they are polite!)
Introduce the learning/presentation objectives for the session and check them out with your audience, better to know up front if your agenda doesn’t match theirs

Take a look at the Facilitation skills page for additional information