Your attention is trainable.
Oh yes, isn’t that great news?
How can I guide attention in my presentation and workshop design to help someone focus?
Imagine you’re hosting a meeting. You have prepared your slide deck full of information so you won’t miss anything. During the meeting, you’re talking people through the slides.
Does that sound familiar?
You’re presenting loads of information to absorb as well as talking them through at the same time. When speaking, you use slightly different words.
Or you’re remembering new information that you want to add.
Or you notice that you’re going off script and lose track of your goal.
Let me explain why this can create a conflict in the brain, and people can lose focus.
Many networks in the brain help us guide our attention. I want to explain two of these networks to you: DAN and VAN.
DAN = Goal-focused and does well with clear instructions. Think: What is the primary goal of this slide? Give DAN tasks like finding the five differences on this slide or three similar answers.
VAN = Similar to DAN but is drawn to unexpected things. It kicks in when something surprising happens. Think: How can you vary your learning formats or activities during a presentation?
Back to the example: When you speak over while also presenting, you create a conflict in the brain as you ask the brain to focus on reading + listening. Decide upfront. What is my primary goal? Do I want them to read this slide, or do I want them to listen? If listening is the answer, what information can you remove from the slide so it’s clean and easy to absorb?
You want to keep your DAN and VAN active and focused.
