SCUP's 48th Annual, International Conference

Ideas for Interactivity – Beyond Q & A!

Make Your Session Brain Friendly!

Super charge your session to foster thinking instead of just listening, by asking provocative questions or engaging the audience in interactive exercises or discussion. Think about what you want your audience to learn and remember. It’s more than covering tons of content – it’s covering content in a way that reinforces learning

Here are suggestions on ways you can engage your audience beyond Q&A. If you have additional ideas for audience engagement, please send them to profdev@scup.org, and we will post them here! 

Keys for Active Learning:

• Clear instructions:
• Post instructions on the slide.
• Time activity so you don't go over time.
• Let attendees know how they will know activity is over (for discussions, give attendees 1 minute warning).

What you can do in 2 minutes or less

Polling Questions

1. Ask attendees a multiple choice question to assess prior knowledge about session content, comprehensive of learning in session, or opinion of issue related content.

When to Use: Anytime throughout session

Need: polleverywhere and mobile devices, although simple show of hands can suffice

Length of Time: 1–3 minutes

What you can do in 3-5 minutes

Provide a question or ask people to come up with a good example. Tell them to break up into groups of three or four to discuss the question and report back.

Introduce two contrasting ideas or approaches to solving a problem. Give your audience a few minutes to discuss them with each other before moving on to present your data.

Learning Assessment

1. At beginning of session, ask attendees to think about what they already know about the session’s topic and what they hope to learn about the session’s topic.

2. Attendees then share with the person next to them.

When to Use: Beginning of session

Length of Time: 3–5 minutes

Reflection


1. Ask attendees to reflect on their experience with the session’s content. Come up with a positive experience and a negative experience. Share with a neighbor or small group.

When to use: beginning of session

Length of time: 3–5 min

Focused Listing


1. Ask attendees to make a list associated with your session’s content (ex. all the benefits of strategic planning).


When to use: Usually beginning of session


Length of time: 3 min

Key Word Summary/Word Cloud

1. Ask attendees to write down key word summaries or draw their own word clouds that best describe what they have learned so far.

When to use: Mid-session, end of session


Length of time: 5 minutes

What you can in 5-8 minutes

Stump Your Partner

1. Ask attendees to think of the question or concept they find most challenging.

2. Attendees pose the question to their neighbor.

3. Any questions that were not able to be answered between partners can be posed to the presenters.

When to Use: Throughout Session

Time: 5–7 min

Think-Pair-Share

1. Post a question that demands analysis, evaluation, or synthesis.

2. Attendees take 2 minutes to think individually about a response to the question.

3. Attendees turn to partner and share responses.

4. Responses are shared with larger group.

When to Use: Throughout session, encourages large group participation and both introvert and extrovert interaction

Time: 5–10 min

Case Study Debate

1.  While reviewing a case study, stop when you reach a point where a difficult decision in the case study had to be made.

2. Describe why the decision was difficult.

3. Ask attendees to partner and debate one side of the decision v. the other side of the decision (if they have no preference for which side, offer clear instructions for how to choose, ex. person whose date of birth falls earlier in the year will debate decision side A). What decision should be made?

4. Allow attendees to debate for 4-5 minutes, then reveal which decision was made and why.

Time: 5–7 min

Display a series of statements about the topic and ask participants to decide whether each is true or false. Then provide background information related to each statement.

Individual activities done together can also create interactive opportunities. Try asking your audience to take a minute to brainstorm or answer a question in a workbook or on a handout. Use their contributions to jump-start your own discussion of the topic.

Invite your audience to imagine themselves in a situation that you describe, and to think about what they would do. Encourage out-loud responses, either in the context of a small group, or to the group as a whole. Again, use their contribution to further your own discussion of the topic.

What you can do in 8-15 minutes

Note/Comprehension Check

1. In partners or small groups (3–4), ask attendees to review the top three points they gained from the session so far, and their biggest question so far.

2. Unanswered questions can be posed to presenters.

When to Use: Mid-Session and Later

Length of Time: 7–10 minutes

Muddiest Point

1. Ask attendees to spend 2 minutes writing down parts of the session they would like explained further.

2. Spend 8 minutes explaining those points.

When to Use: Mid-session, end of session

Length of time: 10 minutes

Game Plan


1. At the end of the session, ask attendees to write down next steps they will take with what they’ve learned at the session.

2. Share with partner or small group.


When to use: End of session


Length of time: 8–10 minutes

Consider dividing your presentation into ten-minute segments. Evidence shows that our attention span today is about ten minutes. In between those ten-minute chunks, try an exercise or discussion. Keep those activities and discussions short for two, three or even five minutes. This will help your audience increase retention.

Time Your Exercise - Create A Cue!

Tell your audience that you will be using a specific cue or signal to get their attention and let them know that time for the discussion or activity is done. Consider a countdown clock that can be displayed via your slides as another option.