In the ninth chapter of They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark (2011), the author emphasizes using the audiences’ emotions to increase retention of the information in your presentation.
I was not surprised to know that an emotional story was more effective than statistics alone. What I was surprised by was that including statistics actually reduced the effectiveness of the presentation. I suppose that as a society, we’ve been bombarded by so many statistics that we tend to tune them out. I wonder if this extends to other factual information. In a world where the facts are readily available via Google, do our presentations need to do more than point people in the right direction? Of course in most school settings this isn’t appropriate. Of course we have to convey the factual information. That’s the whole point. I’m not quite sure how to include something to tug on my students’ heartstrings in an Algebra 1 presentation, but I will think about it.
References
Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
No comments:
Post a Comment