critical incident questionnaire

Adult Education Research Conference (AERC2009)

No sooner do I get myself home and settled from my perspective-reinforcing Qualitative Congress, but now I am off again, this time headed to Chicago for the 50th Adult Education Research Conference. This time, I am presenting a paper entitled The Critical Incident Questionnaire (CIQ): From Research to Practice and Back 5008 Again.

If you are in Chicago on Saturday, May 30, from 9:00-9:45 and want to check it out, I will be in room 5008 at the National-Louis University (NLU) Campus, 122 S. Michigan Avenue.

Learning from Impromptus

I watched the impromtus during our final class last night, and it appears they were well-received. I changed the format of how I handle these, as well as making the questions more open-ended and general than traditional business-related issues, and then used a Critical Incident Questionnaire to better understand the experience. There are a few things that stick out in my mind about this end-of-course activity:

Speaking on your feet is not scary with practice.
Seeing how things work well and then trying them out can be effective (such as asking the audience a question and getting their responses at the beginning to capture their attention).
Humor goes a long way to engaging and maintaining audience involvement.
Using a general communications model can be applicable to all communications situations.
Using a personal story on a topic with which the audience can directly relate is engaging.

I am pleased with the results, and like the way it seemed to end the course on a positive note by taking what we learned and applying it to a larger context (life). I hope my students found it as useful as well.

Do Business Presentation Rules Translate to Education?

Business Week had an interesting article on their website today, Twitter Changes the Game for Pitching, where they discussed four rules for delivering effective business presentations:

Think visually
Cater to “clip culture
Create Twitter-length headlines
Practice regularly and incorporate feedback

While I teach business communication to MBA students, it struck me how useful they may be for education, especially for the adult and continuing education I regularly engage in. I am trying to be more visual in my slides, though I rarely (ok, never) embed videos in my work (mental note to self–try Zamzar.com). I do try to use message titles (focused and active titles that seek to engage and capture the main message of the slide) and I use an adapted version of Brookfield’s Critical Incident Questionnaire at the end of my classes for feedback.

I wonder, though, if I ever share and then discuss these concepts with my students to get their thoughts (as well as feedback)? No better time than to try in class tonight!