From Didactic to Fantastic: Integrating Interactivity into Your Learning Session

Consumer health education is often didactic and may not engage participants in learning. Not only can this be boring for learners and for teachers, but this approach has been demonstrated to have poorer learning outcomes than education that uses multiple formats and integrates adult learning strategies.
Interaction in education is easy to do and can help make learning successful. Schwartz provided attendees with simple strategies to integrate interactive activities into their learning to maximize health outcomes, learning retention and engagement.

This interactive session used various engagement strategies starting before attendees walked through the door, and drew on attendees own experiences. Schwartz shared some basic adult learning principles and facilitated discussions to help attendees identify adult learning needs and strategies in a healthcare environment.

Schwartz reviewed some specific interactive techniques that can be used in learning, such as:

• reflection
• paired and group discussion
• audience polling
• quizzes, games
• ice breakers
• the use of multimedia, including digital technology

The session closed with attendees identifying interactive strategies that they will integrate into their teaching over the next 6 months.