The three benefits of gesturing – it’s not what you think
June 20, 2008
Why is it, that when you’re speaking in front of a group you suddenly become aware of these great clumsy appendages at the end of your arms – your hands?
Why do you suddenly wonder what to do about them?
Gesturing is natural
Claim your Space
May 27, 2008
Lisa Braithwaite from Speak Schmeak has commented on my post about the attention-getting myth. I started responding to her comment, but my response got so long I decided it was worth a blogpost in its own right.
The issue is how to best help nervous speakers at the start of a presentation . Lisa suggested that:
Using an opening that immediately involves the audience, for example, through asking questions, engages them while also immediately taking pressure off the speaker to perform.
The myth of learning styles
May 26, 2008
Many presenters have heard about learning styles and want to know how they can take individual learning styles into account when they present. But the learning styles model has no research that backs it up:
“from a neuroscientific point of view [the learning styles approach to teaching] is nonsense”. (Susan Greenfield, specialist in brain physiology, quoted in The Times Educational Supplement, 27 July 2007).
But it still sticks around. Today I was a participant on a course where I was subjected to a “learning styles” test. Here’s just one example. I was asked when buying a gift did I prefer to buy: [Read more]
Why you don’t need to grab attention
May 18, 2008
As a relatively new blogger I’m spending a lot of time reading other people’s blogs. I came across this intriguing story from the Washington Post which was blogged by both Seth Godin and Laura Fitton when it was first published last year.
A world-class violinist, Joshua Bell, was asked by the Washington Post to busk during the morning commute at a Washington metro station. The paper wanted to see how people would react to hearing a world-class violinist in such an incongruous setting. If you want to read the full story, click over there now, as I’m about to reveal what happened.
Joshua Bell played for 43 minutes and in that time 1,097 people passed by him. Only a handful of people stopped to listen and then only for a couple of minutes.
Attention-getting – The Evidence
May 11, 2008
In my last post I wrote about the attention-getting myth. I argued that the idea that you have to grab attention at the beginning of a presentation is a myth. Here’s the evidence to back that up.
Studies have been done measuring the attention levels of students in university lectures. Here’s the results of a study that asked students for their subjective assessment of their attention at different points in the lecture:
