May 11, 2010 by Jeff Hurt
On May 11, 2010, I presented a Webinar for KRM Information on Designing Next Generation Conference Education Sessions: Creating an Environment for Informal and Formal Learning in a Digital Age. Update May 13, 2010: Listen to the free recording of the sixty-minute presentation.
As promised, here are the slides from the presentation. Enjoy.
After viewing the slides from the presentation, what questions do you have? What steps can you take to create more participatory and interactive education sessions at your conference and event?
Filed Under: Conference Education, Experience Design
Hi Jeff, I’m so disappointed I missed the presentation – had my own small speaking engagement on CSR measurement and strategy 🙂
Even just from the slides, it looks incredibly interesting, and I’m that much more intrigued. So, I do have a couple of questions for you.
1. In principle #4 on informal/formal learning, you mention “Push v. Pull” methodology. I understand the concept when it comes to technology and marketing – but could you elaborate on what that means for education? Perhaps one or two specific examples?
2. How do you think these 6 principles apply to an international audience? I have worked with various cultures and my discovery is that learning and education is strongly influenced by our culture. This is especially pronounced when you study a topic such as Japanese and are forced to shift into Japanese methodologies for learning…it’s super hard to acclimate!
Thanks Jeff, hope the webinar went great. mec
Thanks Midori for adding to the discussion. The recording of the presentation will be available later from KRM informtion free of charge so you can still listen to my fast-paced, information sharing Webinar. Here are my thoughts about your questions:
Push vs pull education: For years, conference organizers have decided what was important to offer in education sessions. In some cases, committees decided the topics, speakers and content. Today, people want to self-organizer around specific topics and issues and they want to pulll experiences, knowledge and information from each other. Peer2Peer Roundtable Discussions style sessions where attendees enter a room and can choose from 20-50 or more different topics, one at each of the tables is an example of the pull method. The roundtables are not based on top-down controlled lectures. Instead they are facilitated discussions with the attendees deciding the questions/issues about the topic and leading the direction of the discussion. Another type of pull method is OpenSpace sessions where the topics are decided onsite as people enter the room. Event professionals need to offer a variety of concurrent breakouts with some using traditional lectures for those that want them and the pull method were organized, designed and run by attendees themselves.
International audiences & these six principles: I think that each country and culture has to be considered for the best education design of programs. In some cases the way the brain learns and retains information is the same regardless of the country. In other cases, the culture and how those citizens view education are important factors to consider. For the majority of 21st century developed countries, the principles still apply. For instance their is a large adoption in Brazil of the Internt as well as in China. The language and semantics are different so describing some of the concepts can be challenging.
Hope that helps some.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jeff Hurt, Scott Gould, Dave Lutz, LisaKraus, Kelly Vandever and others. Kelly Vandever said: RT @JeffHurt Designing Next Generation Conference Education Sessions http://bit.ly/aOuYyl […]
That’s excellent news, I’m looking forward to the replay.
Thanks for explaining the push-pull concept a little deeper. I’ve been thinking lately about how I can incorporate being able to choose what happens next in my sessions…what they used to do with those fantasy books. Like allowing a vote on something such as: “To dissect the Values Statement of Company A, let’s go to slide 23. To dissect the Values Statement of a company in the room, let’s go to slide 25”. I used to love those books! 🙂
[…] However, the broader picture is more than the varying levels of tactfulness of each event attendee. Our concerns centers around the usefulness of social tools during an event and whether they can get in the way of what a face-to-face session should be about; a conversation for learning, engaging, sharing and enriching your event experience? Frankly, we agree with Jeff Hurt’s thoughts and best practices regarding the Design of Next Generation Conference Educational Sessions […]
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