The Seven Strategies of Master Presenters - Lifecycle Performance ...

140 / THE SEVEN STRATEGIES OF MASTER PRESENTERS
Remember, though, it is still the job of the Master Presenter to
fill in any missing points, to elaborate on any points that might need
clarification, and to bring some sense of order to the comments that
were randomly offered.
2. Active vs. Passive Learning
In passive learning, the participants are silent recipients of information
that is all too often read to them. This is a technique that
produces little, if any, long-term learning.
In active learning, the participants are more than silent partners.
In active learning, the participants receive the same information, but
are encouraged to transmit information back. Think back to the best
teacher you ever had. Chances are, he or she involved you in the
learning process on a much higher level than mere listening. Master
Presenters depend on active learning techniques.
Which would you prefer: a presenter who explains a concept and
gives one or two examples before moving on, or a presenter who gives
a concept and then divides the participants into groups and asks each
group to give an example of how they can apply the concept in real
life? Most people prefer the active learning approach over the passive
listening style.
In the active learning example just presented, there are four ways
that the participants can be actively involved:
1. They can be asked to come up with a specific example
of how the solution could be applied in real life.
2. They can be asked to listen carefully to the other
examples in order to choose the one that they like best.
3. They can be asked to debate the merits of each
proposed example in order to choose the one that the
group will present.
4. They can be asked to listen carefully to see which
group presents the best example(s) overall.
In Brad’s two-day course Dealing With Workplace Conflict, he divides
the participants into three groups and asks each group to read
one of three different, short articles as homework. The first is “Thinking
Outside of the Box,” 1 the second “Caught by Choice” 2 (a superbly
crafted article on being caught emotionally in a conflict that we would
be better off not being caught in), and the third is “Inter-Departmental