Tag: education best practices


When Speakers Truly Care: From Spouting Witty Repartee To Transforming Lives

Our conferences and association education programming depend upon speakers as experts sharing their knowledge with the crowd. Yet, the education research is loud and clear that people talking at an audience does not necessarily lead to attendees’ learning. Actually, there’s more likelihood that you’ll win a multi-million dollar Powerball lottery than telling leads to learning. … [Read more…]

Five Steps To Take Your Education Programming From Blah To Wickedly Smart

Curation: it’s more important than you think. And it’s extremely critical to the success of your education programming. When it comes to choosing education programming, curation involves deep excavation of the right content for the right audience at the right time for the right issue. Authentic Curation For Education Programming Curation is more than just … [Read more…]

Six Tips To Create The Conference Introvert Advantage

Are you an introvert or an extrovert? If you’re an introvert, you’re trendy right now. There is a lot of media buzz about introversion and their inner strengths in a primarily extrovert world. One In Four… At least one in four people tends to listen more than they speak, often feels alone in large groups, … [Read more…]

Delivery or Discovery? The Dueling Conference Competitors

Which is more important to your attendees’ conference experience? Delivery of information or discovery of content? There lies the tension for 21st Century Conferences offering education sessions. The Faulty Premise For Conference Delivery As A Priority In most conference experiences, an attendee’s role is to consume information and knowledge that is hypothetically scarce. A conference … [Read more…]

Avoid The Conference Zombie Zone

Do your conference’s education efforts result in the living dead or do they create life-transforming moments? Meeting professionals who understand Evidence Based Education (EBE)—the science and evidence on learning –and those who apply EBE strategies derived from the research, will find their conference education efforts becoming more effective and exciting. Here is the slide deck … [Read more…]

It Is Time To Hold Conference Speakers More Accountable

It’s time to hold speakers accountable for attendee learning, not just completed evaluation smile sheets! It’s time to encourage conference speakers to consciously improve. And if we want our conference speakers to improve, we need to provide them with information that shows where they need to improve and how to improve. What Product Does A … [Read more…]

Just Because You Speak Does Not Mean Your Audience Learns: Eight Presenter Principles To Master

Most speakers are really good at talking! But talking to your audience does not mean that your audience is learning. Our Brains Have Limits As speakers, we have assumed that talking to an audience results in their learning. We think that their minds are like sponges absorbing what we are saying. But just hearing information … [Read more…]

Five Myths Of Interactive, Participatory Learning For STEM Conferences

It’s one of the most common excuses I hear from STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics/Medical) conference organizers today… “As ______________ (insert appropriate STEM word) attendees, they won’t participate in interactive sessions or discussions. They don’t want to be actively involved. They don’t like to talk. They came to hear from an expert. We can’t leave … [Read more…]

Adding Active Learning Strategies To Passive Video Watching To Increase Effectiveness

Watching online video has gone from being a niche activity to mainstream. The implications of online video growth are huge for brands, organizations as well as learning. Yet watching a video is a passive experience. And often our minds jump to couch potato mode, conditioned by watching years of TV in passive mindsets. Tips To … [Read more…]

Do You Want Your Audience To View Your Video Or Learn From It?

Online videos seem to be the rampant trend right now. Online video sharing apps like YouTube, Vimeo, Netflix, Hulu, Instagram, TED Talks, Vine, Viddy, Vigi, Mobli, Lightt, Telly, TwitC, Socialcam, Klip, Tout and Bob.TV are all declaring it the decade of online video. Here’s the fact many of these online video programs forget to tell … [Read more…]