Connecting With Your Participants
May 14, 2006 • By Bob Pike CSP, CPAE
One thing that's always important is connecting with your participants. I believe they need to know that we're teaching from prepared lives as well as prepared lessons…and that we are there to benefit them.
Here are eight tips for doing a better job of connecting with your next group.
1. Be early. Make sure that the last fifteen minutes before a class begins can be spent connecting with the participants. That may mean setting up an hour early to be sure that the logistical/technical glitches are solved so you can relax and focus on making your participants feel welcome.
2. Stay late. Make sure that you are NOT the first one to leave. My rule of thumb is to plan on spending the first fifteen minutes after a session connecting with people informally, then I start working on room set-up or break down or whatever else is needed.
3. Allocate part of each break to your participants. My rule of thumb is 50% for them and 50% for me. This allows me to be sure that I connect with almost everyone…or at least they know I'm available.
4. Be back from lunch fifteen minutes early. Be on hand to greet people as they return.
5. Use a capture-the-question board. In addition to using other methods to answer questions, I post a sheet of chart paper with a large question mark on it. Anyone can take a Post-it note and place a question on the board. I scan the board and work in answers to questions that participants would really like answered.
6. Stay in the room during activities. Nothing will communicate to a group that you don't care more quickly than starting an activity and then leaving the room. The same is true when you use a video. Stay in the room, even if it's for the 100th time. Focus on your audience instead of the video. This may prove more valuable than the video content itself.
7. Circulate during activities. Don't eavesdrop, but make it easy for a group to call you over to clarify an activity or ask a question.
8. Use an opener like "four facts" to help you and your group get to know each other better personally. Briefly, each person in a small group of five to seven shares four facts three true, one false. Each individual tries to guess which fact is false and why. The people reveal their false statements. This helps people connect better because they end up knowing each other better on a personal level.
Doing any of these things will help you connect better with a group and creates a better learning environment.
Adopting all of the above will make you awesome!
