First of all, making the room a safe atmosphere in which to experiment and make mistakes is a prerequisite. As the presenter or seminar leader, you set the tone in the way you respond to your audience’s questions and how you allow audience members to treat one another.
Second, draw your audience out with questioning. In addition to creating a deeper learning experience for your audience, if used strategically, questioning can help transform a room full of shy wallflowers into enthusiastic participants.
Basically, the strategy is simple. First, start with easy questions that the audience will surely know, and as they gain confidence, make them more challenging. I refer to Bloom’s Taxonomy for easier to more challenging question types, listed below. (Don’t stay in the easier question types for too long, or risk audience tune-out from boredom.)
1) Knowledge- recall data or information. Key verbs: define, describe, identify, state.
2) Application- use a concept in a new situation, apply new knowledge into a novel situation. Key verbs: demonstrate, modify, construct, change, employ.
3) Synthesis- build a structure or pattern from diverse elements; put parts together to form a whole, with an emphasis on creating a new meaning or structure. Key words: categorize, combine, compose, design, explain, revise, reorganize, arrange.
4) Comprehension- understand or state a problem in one’s own words. Key verbs: infer, interpret, paraphrase, predict, summarize.
5) Analysis- separate material into component parts so the organizational structure may be understood; distinguish between facts and inferences. Key verbs: deconstruct, differentiate, illustrate, outline, separate, relate.
6) Evaluation- make judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Key verbs: appraise, conclude, critique, defend, justify, interpret.
Second and most important, is responding to your audience’s questions with positive feedback and support. Allow them appropriate wait time- 3 to 4 seconds — to answer, as interminable a length of time as that may seem. Next, give clear and specific feedback. Praise or redirect toward a correct answer whenever you can. For example, substitute something like, “No, but you’re on the right track” for a blunt, “No, that’s wrong.” When they’re more comfortable, preface more difficult questions with something like, “This is a tough one. Who wants to take a chance?” And praise whoever does take that chance for doing so despite their answer. I think you get the point…
Never underestimate the impact your responses will have upon your audience!
©2009 Lily Iatridis
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