Putting People And Learning Before Places And Spaces

“Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah blah. Blah, blah, blah!”

The words fall from the speaker’s mouth to listener’s ears.

The more the speaker shares, the more the listeners quickly forget.

Here’s a truth: Content covered by the speaker does not automatically translate into content learned by the audience.

Same Old, Same Old

For the past 50 years, the vast majority of our conference education has remained the same.

A didactic approach, the lecture, has monopolized our conferences.

Our goal as conference organizers has been to provide as much information as possible, as fast as possible and as efficiently as possible, through traditional speakers and panels. We have focused on pushing information into attendees’ brains. We mistakenly believed that we were able to control our attendee’s learning by dispensing information.

We thought that providing content and information via talking heads was the best educational approach. Yet, we now know that those thoughts are misguided.

Today we have a greater depth of understanding of how adults learn. Research has proven that sitting in a chair listening to a presenter is not the best way to learn. Actually, it is directly opposed to how our brains are naturally inclined to receive, consider and remember information. It goes against how we actually learn.

The conference lecture and the traditional panel are actually barriers to learning. They are great for transferring information but if the goal is attendee learning, then we have failed.

Time For New Discussions During Conference Planning

It’s time for conference organizers to begin having discussions about adult learning. Ultimately, our discussions about attendee learning have been severely lacking.

Too often our discussions have been on traditional room sets, spaces and AV. But even the best and grandest meeting space does not transform speaker practice and attendee learning in any measurable way!

Forward-thinking conference organizers are suggesting that the emphasis on the conference space and meeting details is over. Instead, it’s time for conference transformation, to rethink conference education through the lens of andragogy (how adults learn). We need to be more intentional about spaces for purposeful learning. These discussions are critical for the sustainability of the conference.

We need to have more reflection and discussion around adult learning. We need to realize that form follows function. Learning and presenting should shape the space, not the other way around. Our conference logistics should be about people and learning first, then places and spaces.

Andragogy-Space Performance Measures

We need a new set of adult learning-space performance measures.

We need planning and design principles to assist conference organizers to design new learning environments for new or best adult learning strategies. We need adult learning-space performance measures to help presenters focus on attendee learning.

The space and the room set do not, in themselves, change anything. We need to be focused on attendee learning and presenting first, then how the space should be set to foster that learning.

In a world where active, collaborative and participatory learning are critical, our spaces need to reflect these learning approaches. Our flexible spaces need to focus on enabling people to make big ideas, instead of focusing on big ideas for people.

Spaces should add value to learning. They should augment the learning process. Conference organizers need to see themselves as influencers of attendee learning, not just schedulers of speakers.

It’s time to have those discussions about one of our primary conference goals: attendee learning.

What are some of the principles that should be included in our adult learning-space performances? How can conference organizers shift from a focus on logistics to one of a learning strategies?