A psychologist says whether or not your entire presentation or teaching is successful greatly depends on the first 15 minutes of your performance. This theory has been proved and affirmed by a number of surveys, conducted by a group of American researchers who studied the behavior of the interviewees during the interview process.
In fact, this crucial phenomenon is indeed in line with what an American educational psychologist, Robert Gagne, calls with ‘gaining attention stage’, the first step of his-nine-step teaching instruction theory. Gagne does not narrow down what is meant by a gaining attention activity nor explicitly offer clear cut kinds of activities that we have to proceed in order to successfully draw audience’ attention. He simply encourages us to think out of box, making an activity in such a way that possibly wins the hearts of the audiences. We can start it with answering the following question: ‘Would our audiences be interested if I did this?’
It is absolutely true as I experienced it myself in the recent workshop Sunday 22 of June 2008 in Nganjuk. I did it by doing a simple task. I asked them to get to know each other. Since they were from different institutions I believed that they hardly knew each other well. They had to introduce all members of the group. For example, the first person said:’ I am Daniel.’ The next person, Mrs. Maria (a made-up name), continued saying: ’you are Daniel. I am Maria.” The third (Mr. Budi) said:”You’re Daniel. She’s Maria. And I’m Budi”. As such, they had to remember each other’s names.
They did it. In fact they were happy to do it. This exercise seemed to be efficient to gain their attention. Everybody wanted to speak. Everybody wanted to show off. Everyone wanted the public to know who they were and more importantly how great they did their job.
Giving someone a chance to let themselves be known, heard, cared indeed reflects an absolute truth of human existence…the basic need of all. Once you do it, you win.(DG)
2 komentar:
Bravo, bravo, man! Great posting! Simple, brief, but right to the heart of the matter. Yes, I do agree with your idea of winning their attention. Congrats for successfully applying a psychological theory to a workshop session. And what's more, now you are one damn good blogger! Enjoy the ride, man!
Bravo, man! Good posting as a start. That was smart, applying a psychological theory to a group of workshop audiences. Yes, I agree with that. And now that you are one damn good rookie blogger, I wish you fun and enriching journey in the blogging world. Happy blogging, keep rocking!
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