Top Ten Tips for Effective Interactive Polling Sessions with Audience Response Technology
Institutions have long used lectures as the standard method of teaching, with the assumption that they are an effective method of imparting great amounts of information to large groups of students. Recent research, however, questions the effectiveness of traditional lecture formats on participant understanding and knowledge retention. When the audience takes a purely passive role, their attention fails after 20 to 30 minutes with most people incapable of recalling more than three facts from an hour long lecture.
Using audience response technology improves lectures by encouraging more efficient acquisition and retention of knowledge through active learning.
The following tips will make your interactive audience response sessions run smoother:
Tip 1: Keep questions short to improve legibility
Keep your question and answer options short and simple in order that the audience can read them easily and respond quickly.
Tip 2: Have five (or less) answer options
If more than five options are displayed to read. Also, when results are shown, they become cluttered and difficult to interpret.
Tip 3: Ask simple questions
Don’t make your questions too complex. If you present your audience with too much text and think they’ll be able to read it, understand it and make an immediate decision, either the response rate will drop because of the difficulty of the task, or the presentation will slow down considerably to allow time to provide meaningful answers to the questions. Neither of these situations is ideal – the purpose of using interactive audience response systems is to create a non-threatening atmosphere which encourages the participation of all audience members, and for the session to be active and fun.
Tip 4: Allocate time for discussion
Once the presentation is underway the audience quickly gets involved and much discussion is stimulated as their responses to the questions are displayed. When preparing your presentation, therefore, you must build in time for such discussion.
Tip 5: Don’t ask too many questions
Use questions sparingly to highlight the points you most want participants to retain. Vary your presentation with other slides. Giving your audience with a series of one question after another becomes tedious and their enthusiasm will fly out the window.
Tip 6: Check out your polling location ahead of time in order to identify any potential technical problems
There are some technical issues to keep in mind regarding venue. For example, certain types of lighting can interfere with the signals of infra-red (IR) handsets and receivers. Radio-frequency (RF) units may have trouble if the range between base stations and keypads is too far, or if separate interactive polling sessions are held simultaneously in close proximity. It is thus recommended to try out the system in the proposed venue in order that any such problems can be identified and fixed before the polling session begins.
Tip 7: Set up and test the system prior to the start of the meeting
It takes some time to connect the various components and lay out the handsets – depending on the size of venue and audience. Allow plenty of time to set up the system and make sure all the components are working before your audience arrives, and plan for some extra time to fix any problems that may unexpectedly surface during the setup process.
Tip 8: Rehearse your presentation to ensure that it will run smoothly
audience response systems are simple to use but require initial practice to get familiar with them and to co-ordinate the timing for a smooth-running presentation. Rehearse your presentation several times, especially the first few times that you use the audience response system technology, until you are confident with it.
Tip 9: Provide clear instruction to your audience
Inform your audience on what is expected of them. Unless they register their response at the correct time, their response will not be recorded. Clear instruction should be provided before the session begins in order that the maximum number of valid responses to each question is collected.
Tip 10: Encourage participatory discussion
One of the most beneficial features of interactive polling sessions!presentations is the enthusiastic discussion that ensues from the audience polling format. The anonymous nature of the responses creates an informal, non-threatening environment, and this encourages spontaneous debate between the audience and presenter.
Adhering to the above practical advice will help you achieve the benefits of audience response systems, which can turn large group polling meetings into a truly interactive – and fun – experience for both you and your audience.
