Whether you’re taking a family trip or a business trip, the first thing you usually decide on is the final destination. This way, you can carefully plan and find effective ways to ensure a successful trip. Similarly, when doing conference presentations, you should establish your learning objectives early on. Within this blog, you will learn how to improve your conference learning outcomes and their corresponding benefits.
What are conference learning outcomes?
Conference learning outcomes are the objectives you want your conference attendees to learn from your presentation. The focus is not on what the presenters will do but rather on what the attendees are able to do after joining the conference or presentation. Moreover, these learning outcomes have to be measurable. Participants must have access to these conference learning outcomes.
Then, attendees should be able to determine whether they’ve acquired the mentioned knowledge, skills, or experience after the conference. These conference learning outcomes not only offer guidance to both the presenter and the attendees but also set everyone’s expectations and help set realistic goals.
Why are learning outcomes important?
Determining learning outcomes while planning conference presentations helps facilitate active learning. In addition, it help participants determine which conference presentations match their needs.
Attendees
Attendees will also know what they can expect to learn, monitor their progress, and see whether the presenter has satisfied the learning objectives.
Presenters
For the presenters, these learning outcomes serve as a basis for your content or presentation and evaluation. You can plan your strategies to make sure the learning outcomes will be realized.
Through these learning outcomes, both the presenters and participants will be on the same page, allowing for a smoother and more fruitful engagement.
How to improve my conference’s learning outcomes
Although you might be familiar with conference presentations, you might still be wondering, “how to improve my conference’s learning outcomes?”
Follow these steps to promote active learning and higher engagement:
- Do your research: This includes learning about the history of similar conferences or events and updates in regulations. Then, gather information about the potential participants of the conference, so it’s easier to align your goals and content.
- Set measurable and observable learning outcomes: Effective learning outcomes are observable, measurable, concise, meaningful, and done by the participants and not the presenter. Hence, clearly state what knowledge or skills your participants will learn after your presentation. For example, do not just say, “By the end of the session, you will gain a deeper understanding of inclusion and diversity in the workplace.” It’s hard to measure understanding, so say, “By the end of the session, you will summarize your thoughts and feelings regarding inclusion and diversity in the workplace.”
- Stay consistent: Do not change the purpose of your presentation in the middle of your session. Moreover, stick to the same terminologies throughout your presentation to avoid confusion.
- Remove noise: This means you shouldn’t share stories that are not relevant to your presentation. Moreover, do not proceed to new topics without wrapping up the previous ones.
- Consider the six-level classification: This includes knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation according to Bloom’s taxonomy of cognitive objectives. This way, you can develop more meaningful learning outcomes.
Besides following the steps above, ask yourself these questions to help make sure you’re establishing clear and effective learning outcomes:
- What are the broad and specific objectives of my presentation?
- Who is my target audience?
- How will the conference attendees benefit from my presentation?
- What knowledge or skills will the attendees gain from my presentation?
- How can the attendees apply such knowledge and skills?
Benefits of establishing learning outcomes
Establishing learning outcomes for conference presentations offer benefits to the presenter, such as:
- Choosing the right strategies and materials: You will know what methods, tools, and techniques to apply to make sure your audience will acquire the skills and knowledge you intend them to learn.
- Saving time and resources: With clear and measurable learning outcomes, you won’t have to waste time, effort, and even money to include things that are irrelevant to the goal of your presentation. Rather, you’ll know how much preparation you need.
At the same time, your audience will enjoy the following benefits of polished learning outcomes:
- Understanding what they can learn prior to the presentation: They know what they’ll gain by the end of your presentation and how they can apply such learning.
- Determining whether the presentation satisfies their needs: By knowing the learning outcomes, the audience will know if your presentation suits their interest and priorities.
- Avoiding stress: Since the learning outcomes are well-defined and they know what to expect, your audience can save time and avoid unnecessary stress.
Given that both you and the conference attendees are aware of the learning outcomes, it’s easier to keep everyone invested and make sure your goals are met by the end of the presentation.
Make your next conference a success with Attendee Interactive
Improving your conference learning outcomes by doing enough research and making sure they’re measurable and observable increases participation and lets you save time and other resources.
Want to make sure that your conference is a success? Attendee Interactive is equipped to address your needs. Contact us today or request a demo to see how we can help you ace your next conference and learn more about our services!
