Feb 04, 2015

Burn this information into your presentation practice 

In my last post (Science of Presenting (Part 1)), I covered the elements of motivation, utilisation and stimulus. Please make sure you read it. In today’s article, I will take a look at the notions of interest, transfers and repetition.

Interest

The audience must be interested in the presentation. You can’t assume your audience is interested in your presentation just because they are there. We know they’ll be thinking about something that interests them. Your job is to generate interest in your presentation.

The difference between interest and motivation is very subtle, for they often work in a cause-and-effect relationship.

If interest is high, there will be little need for motivating your audience. If motivation is applied throughout a presentation, the interest problem is solved. We treat them here as separate to emphasise the necessity for including both in your presentations: hold the audience members’ attention and make them want to learn. Now there’s a challenge!

How can you keep your audience members interested?

• First, you, the presenter, must be interested. Audience members quickly ‘turn off’ to a presenter, who appears disinterested in the subject, is listless, or who seems tired or bored.
• Build interest throughout the session. The interest audience members bring to a presentation can quickly be lost. Arouse curiosity and increase enthusiasm as you introduce new material.
• Hold interest once you have achieved it. Some tools you can use are: visual aids, student participation, humour, or a combination of these. Perhaps a change of pace in the presentation or in the physical surroundings will be necessary.
• You must also be interested in the audience members. They will respond to genuine interest and enthusiasm, which involves them personally.
• Get your audience interest aroused early in your presentation. You may want to consider some variety in your opening. Instead of handling all the administrative material and then a standard statement, such as “Today I’m going to talk to you about…”, start with an activity, story, or trick that will have them interacting from the start. This approach gets them involved quickly, covers the introduction dilemma and starts your presentation with participant interest high.

Audience

Audience members learn easily when they can make ‘transfers’. Audience members always arrive in your class with some prior knowledge. They may already understand the basics of the subject; they may also possess considerable misinformation; they may know nothing about the subject.

They will have some knowledge or understanding about something, and it is your job to use that knowledge to enhance the learning process. We call this the principle of ‘Transfer’. Building on what the group knows, working from known to unknown, is termed ‘positive transfer.'

When prior knowledge interferes with new learning, ‘negative transfer’ is taking place. Negative transfer can be avoided by emphasising ‘new learning’ as something to build upon. People resist changing ideas that have long been accepted. Instructing them in new ideas will be easier if they are not confronted with the necessity of unlearning the old ways.

Relating new ideas to known facts can affect positive transfer. Some of the mystery of let’s say Change Management is removed when a student can relate new information to something that is familiar to them. This allows them to grasp the new concept by having a mental picture to which the new facts can be tied.

To use this principle of transfer:

• Always proceed from the known to the unknown.
• Relate new ideas to familiar facts by using analogies and comparisons.
• Emphasise new ideas, concepts or methods as better, not different from old ways.

Repetition

Repetition assists retention. The world of advertising knows well the effect of repeating a message. Stop and think how many times you have seen the same ad on TV or in print. They want to imprint the product or service on your mind and it’s the consistent repetition that does it. Let’s see how this works in presenting. In his many programs, Earl Nightingale tells his listeners:

A message read or heard several times a day for eight days is virtually memorised; at the end of 30 days the memory retains 90% of the message.

No, it is not expected that you repeat your message like a tape recorder in your presentation, but it does show you how the mind works in retaining material and the importance of repetition in your presentations.

So there you have it, now, reflect upon how you can embed these three benchmark practices into your presentation. Practice them and you will soon become a skilled presenter.

Click here to read Part 3.