Ideas for Interactivity—Beyond Q & A!

You want your audience to remember what you teach them, and to enjoy the process of learning. One way to reach these goals is to include activities that allow the audience to interact with you, the material, and each other. Here are a few ideas to help you get your audience involved in the learning process: 

• 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.

• 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.

• Survey the audience (such as asking for a show of hands).