Total recall

Are your presentations stuck in total recall mode? Most presentations flood audiences with facts, demand memorisation with no space or help to achieve this, and hope something sticks. Real learning, the kind that transforms practice, happens when information is understood, analysed, evaluated and then used to create new solutions. If your presentation stops at recall, you’re wasting an opportunity.

Too many presentations stay trapped in the bottom rung of Bloom’s Taxonomy: remembering. The harsh facts are that it is highly unlikely, despite your attention (?) that you can remember three facts from the last presentation you received. When I present workshops, it is often the case that audiences can’t even remember the last presentation, let alone three facts! Far from total recall. There were likely endless lists, definitions, and statistics all mistakingly offered as information transfer for learning. Medicine isn’t about recalling lists but application, it’s about solving problems. If your audience leaves with so very little knowledge, less understanding and no analysis or evaluation of the topic they will be unable to act differently. What’s the point?

As a presenter, it is essential to realise that total recall is not the finish line. Facts alone change nothing and realistically, the ability of the audience to retain facts is hugely limited. Understanding, analysis and evaluation will change that completely. That requires engagement of both presenter and audience. There is more to information than total recall.