I love feedback!

I invited a guest speaker to my class to talk about APA formatting and avoiding plagiarism.  This material can be quite dry and it was refreshing to hear someone else's take on it.  Even though I was pretty familiar with APA formatting, I learned some new things and it's always a good idea to have a refresher every couple of years.

What I enjoyed about Phil's presentation was that one of the first things he told the students was, "I love feedback!"  And he seemed to mean it.  He told us right up front that he likes to hear from the audience when he asks them if they understand something.  He told us to say yes or no or anything so that he would know if we were following along okay.  He was insistent, so much so, that when he asked us throughout the presentation if we understood something, it was common for someone to shout out, "Yes!"  How different this was from most presentations when the speaker barely gets a response when asking that same question.

I have learned that I sometimes have to ask someone more than once if they understand something before they will tell me that they don't.  Maybe it's because we don't like to appear as if we're not following along.  Be the kind of presenter that goes out of her way to make sure that the audience does, in fact, understand your message.