Over the next two weeks, my team will deliver approximately 59 presentations. Instead of just churning out boring presentation after boring presentation, my colleagues have come up with some creative ways to keep their learners engaged. Here are four highlights that have emerged from our preparations.
Pop Quiz!
One colleague has been asked to give a series of lectures. Yes, lectures. Those are the cards we’ve been dealt: a series of lectures. His sessions will be in a lecture hall. The agenda says: “Lectures”. So he has to lecture. But it doesn’t mean he has to drone on and bore the audience.
While he won’t have an opportunity to break the audience into small groups or to have them engage in discussion, he has decided to conduct a pop quiz. As he begins his presentation, he’ll be asking the audience to jot down their answers to a series of questions. As his presentation unfolds, they’ll have to remain tuned into his lecture in order to find out if they were right or wrong.
Not Just Fun and Games
Most of our upcoming meetings are not dedicated lectures. When it comes including game elements into the instructional design, there are two presentations that fall into this category.
Mission Possible
One colleague will be attempting to re-energize the audience when it comes to using our Learning Management System (LMS). In an effort to encourage meeting participants to discover the library of resources available through the LMS, this colleague has created a short elearning program challenging participants to collect pieces of a road map. In small groups, participants will work their way through this mission, sampling LMS-based courses in the process.
An Alternative to the Same Old “Action Plan” Activity
Action planning is an essential element for trainers attempting to make sure that the learning goes beyond the training room and makes its way back to the office. Instead of giving participants 5 or 10 minutes at the end of the workshop to fill out an action plan form, I’ve designed a board game that forces participants to think about how my content can be used in their own situations in order to advance toward the finish line. Who wouldn’t want to play a game in which they can compete against other participants (and themselves), they have to work together to complete a quest and, while they’re at it, they jot down reflections on how the content can be applied back home?
The Crystal Ball
Each year, our organization spends some time announcing our plans and new initiatives for the upcoming twelve months, to our meeting attendees. This year, two colleagues reached deep into the right hemispheres of their brains and came up with an idea that meets the excitement and intrigue and mystery of how to announce new initiatives and projects: they will ask a co-worker to dress up as a fortune teller and ask meeting attendees to draw “tarrot cards” to reveal each new initiative. Props. Costumes. Silliness. Informative. And attention-grabbing.
If any of these have elements that seem like they would make your own presentations more interesting, please steal them.
If you know someone who might be able to derive some inspiration from these ideas, pass this link along.
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