How can you use questions to keep your audience engaged?

Asking questions is a great way to engage with the audiences. I always make it a point to first ask my participants why are they here to listen to me and attend my sessions, and what (skills) are they looking forward to learn. This will ensure that the topics I cover, caters to their needs. On an average, I ask one question every 10 minutes through my session. I also encourage my participants to ask questions and give feedback to their fellow participants for exercises like public speaking, group discussions, presentations, etc, to encourage the observing, listening, and thinking abilities of my participants. This will also ensure they listen to you and their fellow participants during activities.

I find asking questions tells me about the journey the learner is on, where they are starting and where they want to go. My goal is to guide them on the journey by providing resources and I cant do that without learning about them - building trust and connection with them. Questions also help me to become aware of their individual experiences and how their experiences could potentially shape their journey. The questions WE are asking and answering - because it's a give and take - identifies their needs, clarifies misunderstandings, and allows them to feel heard and empowered on the journey we are embarking on together.

I recognize the question as an opportunity to bring that person into the conversation and drive the entire class. A good question and a pertinent answer can drive the class into the next concept or lesson.

In the theory of communication, communication is means by which one person/creature bring about changes into other person / creature. Question or asking question is the simplest way to check if our information is already transferred properly or not. But the process of asking-answering (open question) stages is not always in the classroom. Questions for informal information in informal space are very powerful in classroom process and be used as icebreaker for trainer to work with uneasy feeling or groggy sensation when facing new classes or groups of people. Spend times prior classes to talk to participants about anything and you might get the idea the characters of the participants and skill level that you can use in the training strategy.

Questions are one of the best ways to interact better with your learners. In my corporate trainings, I often questions at variety of occasions. For example, sometimes when someone is zoning out, I subtly ask them a question to make them conscious and bring them back to training. Sometimes, I ask questions to help my learners reflect. Sometimes, I ask question to extract their thoughts and clarity levels for a given context/topic. These are 3 ways where I use questions in my training programs, apart from its conventional usage.

A very long time ago I was taught Pose Pause Pounce, and that way every student is involved mentally in trying to aswer the question. Once you have got an answer, add another "P" Probe. Try to take your students to the next level.

Effective questions need to be: CLEAR C - Be Clear and concise in your questions. L - Listening actively to guide your follow-up questions. E - Encourage Engagement by using open-ended questions. A - Adapt your questions to your audience. R - Respect Responses and give people time to answer.

Questioning is a great tool to provoke thoughts, encourage reflection and also helps to remember what is learnt more effectively.

Asking the question us extremely peculiar as it implies the effect of training session upon people. Their responses will make the session more engaging along with it will surely highlight the gaps between training give and their understanding.

Questions must be related to the content delivered to the audience. Being clear and specific is very important. Questions must be driven from certain planned learning points the audience is expecting to catch. Questions can be generic targeting refreshing or bringing more information from or for participants, Other questions could be more complicated and related to a certain skill the audience should understand and gain, so we ask to help them figure out the process they can go through to gain it.

The response can also be ....silence! Don't be afraid of silence as some people need more time and space to think. You might be tempted to keep on talking and adding more questions to your questions...Don't rush this. At the beginning of your session you might want to ask easy questions (weather, food, wellbeing, hobbies etc..) to check their engagement in natural conversations so that when more content oriented questions come by, you have an idea about their response speed and know whether to reformulate or wait.

By being supportive, open-minded, and building more investigative questions to support participants in reaching the right answers.

Your response to a learner's answer, can keep the engagement going or end that learner's engagement for the entire class. Responding to a learner's answer with "wrong" or "no", will end the desire for that learner to want to participate. Worst case...your response could make other learners timid to participate. Better responses could be"I like how you're thinking. What about if we thought about it this way?" or "That is an interesting answer. Lets add this to your answer." Having your own "soft landing" responses ready, will help you keep an engaging classroom.

One thing I have found helpful is to acknowledge the response given. This not only gives you additional connection to your audience, it helps to guide which way you want to continue the conversation. It also may give you additional points to share either in favor of your point or to get minds to dive deeper into the subject matter.

Always embed questions in the learning experience I always ensure I do 3 questions which I refer to as my triangle questions. The audience remember better when the questions are fewer and my rule of the thumb is not to go beyond 3 at any point

Ask the same people every time. Asking the audience members who are shy or reluctant to participate in a very direct way. Asking others in a challenging attitude can be interpreted as offending others.

In my experience, round robin is a good way of getting people to answer a question and hear their thoughts and insights, however needs to be managed well. If you are already getting similar answers after a few people have spoken, you do not have to religiously finish the round robin and ask everyone the same question. You can pause or stop half way and pose a different question for the rest of the group. Make sure that your question flows from the original objective of the initial question and from the answer of other participants too.

Listen to yourself as you ask the question. Is it a good open question. TV iterviewers have mastered the non-art of asking Multipal questions which are no use to anyone. "Which question do I answer?" and equally "which question was that an answer to! By listening to yourself as you ask, you will get better especially if you are a critical listener.

Ask yourself while preparing: what would be my answer to the question? would I know how to answer this question? and if I do, what would that bring to the learning process: engaging of course, but are you checking understanding, guiding the audience towards a certain conclusion, building rapport etc...

Know your content. Make sure to understand what you are expected to achieve. Figuring our audience expectations. Knowing the level of knowledge and skills the audience owns in relation to the topic. Write down your questions before you start your sessions.

You can use questions to accomplish virtually any training goal. You can open with questions, close with questions and teach with questions. Socrates, acknowledged as one of the greatest teachers of all time, taught with questions. It is important to remember that the power of questions extends far beyond training. Questions can be used to open closed minds and overcome prejudice and bias. The right questions can get people to march off to war. Other questions can motivate people to work together to seek peace. The right question asked in the right way at the right time can get someone to fall in love. The power of questions is virtually unlimited.

For a new audience or crowd, start with close ended questions which are easy for people to answer. This helps them feel good, learn to engage and interact. And then eventually make them open ended.. People are more likely and open to answer deeper and introspective questions once they feel comfortable! And another way to ensure you ask more questions - Whatever you want to tell, ask instead. Adults come with their own experiences, when you ask it let's them bring that to the table, hence they are more engaged!

You can always vary the way you want to collect answers from your audience when you ask a question. This can be from hearing them speak, writing their answers in the chat or using other tools. In my experience, i love use tools like mentimeter for polls and word cloud, kahoot for a more fun interactive way of Q&A. I also try and incorporate some mini games or ice breakers. There are more ways to make the Q&A part of the training fun for the audience, you have to be innovative and always be on the look out for new strategies.