Many face to face training presentations are not optimized for relevance and impact on audiences. The typical presentation consists of one or two presenters, usually having spent large amounts of time and effort developing the instructional design and content. All too frequently, this occurs without any assessment of learner needs, the existing skills in the learning population, or the results of previous training programs on the subject.
Knowing some proven techniques on how to creatively apply an audience response system will turn your presentation into a memorable experience. Audience members will value the way that you combine learning concepts with active audience participation exercises.
The following is a compiled list of the top 5 techniques to utilize when using your audience response system for adult learning.
1. Pre/Post Knowledge Assessment
The best way to deliver a more powerful presentation is to take time to really understand your audience. Asking questions at the beginning of your presentation to identify knowledge levels of attendees and their interest in your planned topics will give you important insight. You'll be able to adjust the content and timeline of your presentation to better meet their needs.
You can use your audience response system to ask pre-assessment questions as you get things started. This will help to draw your audience into your material and identify how much they know (or don't know) about particular topics. Depending on the results, you can spend more or less time on each concept. This will create more memorable, powerful experiences that engage your audience.
Display some of assessment results to foster discussion. Ask the audience why they answered as they did. This will help boost attentiveness and retention. Attendees will be more likely to improve their scores on post-meeting assessments and apply what they have learned; generating valuable metrics for your next presentation.
2. Team Building Exercise
You can use your ARS to promote interaction amongst your audience. This will improve learning and foster new relationships. You can ask some demographic questions to identify who's in the room such as "how long have you been working in this field?" or "how often do you see this type of problem or situation?" This helps attendees to appreciate how they fit with their peers in the session.
Follow-up with some questions to identify audience sub-groups with particular learning needs or interests. Divide the audience into these sub-groups for discussion or problem solving exercises. Attendees will find meaningful solutions working with their peers and will establish new relationships that will last long after your presentation.
What better way to connect your audience members with each other than having them participate in a little competition. Splitting your audience into two or more different teams to compete against each other over a series of questions is another creative way to use your audience response system during your presentation. This is not only a proven exercise that helps audience members retain information, but it also helps build communication and potential networking opportunities between them.
3. Gamification
Gamificationis the use of game playing elements to draw attendees more deeply into your presentation. Competition naturally encourages participation and engagement with your subject material. Develop one interactive game question for each of the most important topics in your presentation. Then, use your audience response system to play a round every 10 to 20 minutes as your presentation unfolds. Pose two or three questions in each round and show a scoreboard with individual or team results. Your audience will enjoy the experience and attentiveness will soar.
There are many possibilities for gamification using your audience polling system. Use challenges, case studies, table teams, and other configurations along with rewards to drive learning and mastery of key concepts or skills. 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.
4. Surveys
Use your ARS to poll the audience on a series of survey questions. You will be able learn what audience members think about each topic in seconds. You can 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. An audience polling system gives you a host of opportunities to tap the wisdom of the people in the room. Your attendees will engage with one another and your material more effectively.
5. Case Studies
Incorporate real-life case study questions to stimulate critical thinking. This will help ignite the creativity of your attendees; nothing gets an audience more engaged than thinking about their own solutions to a practical problem. Using an ARS will give audience members the option to vote for the best proposed solution to the case. Certain audience response systems are even capable of utilizing a priority ranking system. They can also see how others would solve the problem. Putting results on screen and asking participants to defend their selections will allow discussion to expand and increase understanding of the material.
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