We are often asked "How can I get the most out of my Audience Response System?" There are many best practice answers to that question, but they all involve techniques to use your audience response software and hardware to boost INVOLVEMENT.
When people contribute their ideas and reactions, they are more committed to shared outcomes and remember more of what was discussed. Most people understand how an ARS system works for training, voting or digital learning games. Few, however, master using their system to its full potential.
Here are five ways to get better outcomes from your response system:
- Pre/Post knowledge assessment--Using your audience response system to ask pre-assessment quiz questions at the beginning of your session will give you important insight into identifying knowledge levels of attendees and their interest in your planned topics. Depending on the results, you can spend more or less time on each concept which will create more memorable, powerful experiences that engage your audience. In addition, asking the audience why they answered as they did will help boost attentiveness and retention. Asking questions a second time after instruction will reinforce correct answers and provide a measurement of learning.
- Team building exercises--You can use your response system to promote interaction among your participants. This will help foster new relationships and cooperation. For example, you can ask demographic questions that identify important sub-groups in your audience. Then, on subsequent opinion questions show tabulations identifying how the sub-groups are thinking alike or thinking differently. Facilitate discussions to surface misperceptions and issues that need resolution. Break into groups and brainstorm solutions. Polling for immediate reactions from the entire group. This helps build stronger relationships, alignment, and shared commitment.
- Gamification--Gamification is the use of game playing elements to draw attendees more deeply into your presentation. Competition naturally encourages participation and engagement with your subject material. By thinking creatively, you can incorporate a web or PowerPoint based learning game into your presentation in ways that will be both stimulating and effective.
- Surveys--Use your audience response system to poll the audience on a series of audience survey questions. A live audience polling system gives you a host of opportunities to tap the wisdom of the people in the room such as learning what audience members think about each topic! This will allow you to identify how often members of the audience are experiencing problems or issues related to your subject matter. You can then use your response system to foster discussions and benchmark best practice solutions from real world experience. Your attendees will engage with one another and your material more effectively.
- Case Studies--Incorporate real-life case study questions to stimulate critical thinking. This will help ignite the creativity of your attendees by giving audience members the option to vote for the best proposed solution to the case. You can then put the results on screen and ask participants to defend their selections. This can be beneficial when conducting “peer instruction” where the audience is divided into teams of three or four people to discuss and solve case study questions.
Many companies that have purchased an audience response system, or have employed the use of an audience response system rental, have discovered the advantages of using interactive technologies and continue to turn to them to enhance the effectiveness of their training and performance improvement programs in the following ways:
- Active engagement, via interactive polling devices, has been shown to boost attentiveness, understanding, and retention of the presented information.
- Interactive participation allows audience members to see how their responses compare with others and fosters a sense of competition in a non-threatening (i.e., anonymous) environment.
- Audience response technology allows training leaders to receive real-time input about whether the information is being understood and is being presented in the most effective way. Presenters can go back and cover difficult topics or teach them in a different manner if feedback shows that the participants are not grasping the important topics.
- Audience feedback allows presenters to determine which topics are most useful and relevant to the needs of the audience so they can structure their presentations accordingly. Responses can also be used to predict if and how participants will use the information in their jobs.
- Before and after polling can gauge the effectiveness of the training sessions and help training leaders continually improve the content and delivery of their presentations. Post-training feedback can help determine the amount of actual behavior change brought about through the training.
To find out more about various applications for Audience Response Software, please click the "Learn More" button below!
