What’s the Best Format for Chapter Events?

Updated: Aug. 31, 2017  |  Categories: Goal Setting, Meetings/Events  

Who can forget this memorable speech in the movie Good Will Hunting spoken by Sean, the therapist, to Will?

“So if I asked you about art, you'd probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him…. But I'll bet you can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that.”

Like Sean, we all know in our gut that reading or hearing a lecture about something is far removed from actually experiencing it.

Whether you're a kid sitting in a classroom or an adult attending a chapter event, you're likely to be more engaged by active participation, peer collaboration and hands-on experience than you are by passively listening to a teacher or lecturer.

So then why are so many chapter events still provided in a presentation format? Does a lecture really best serve the audience?

One way to spice up chapter events is to turn the tables on the traditional lecture format and embrace interactive lectures. For the best results, you'll want to base your conferences around the idea of experiential learning rather than more passive forms of taking in information.

Emphasizing Experiential Learning

What exactly is experiential learning and how can you incorporate it into your chapter events? How does experiential learning relate to interactive lectures, and how can interactive lectures improve member participation at your conferences?

Experiential means that the process will emphasize experience over pure memorization or passive listening. With experiential learning, participants embrace trial-and-error, and even cooperative learning at conferences.

Participation-Based Conferences

Chapter events that encourage more active participation from the audience tend to be more fun, engaging and memorable versus ones that are purely lecture-based and put the audience as listeners in a passive role.

Using interactive lectures at your chapter events is a great way to encourage the audience to discuss the concepts among themselves, solve problems in tandem and put the principles of cooperative learning to their advantage.

Interactive lectures sidestep communication as a one-way street and typically work in the following way:

• The lecturer introduces the topic
• The audience breaks into groups and discusses the concepts amongst themselves
• Audience members also get to know one another (the added bonus is networking)
• The lecturer summarized the points of the lesson and answers questions

The process of cooperative learning, in general, and interactive lectures, in particular, makes learning much more engaging both for the lecturer and the audience. Members of the audience have the opportunity to compare your understanding on the concepts just presented against those of others.

This kind of collaboration in a chapter event context is an asset for a few reasons. If one or more members of the audience have the same question or concern about the material being presented, they can pose the question to the lecturer in real-time and boost everyone's understanding of the issue being discussed.

Has your organization made the leap to participation-based events yet? Experiential learning is a wonderful way to provide valuable information to large groups in a fun and memorable way.

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