AUDIENCE MANAGEMENT IN THE CLASSROOM

by Joe Dobson and Mac King

(Originally published in Proceedings of the Midwest Academy of Management (2005)

 

The Issue

 Fan:                 I saw your show tonight.  I think you are the funniest comedian I’ve ever seen.

Comedian:      Which did you see—the early show or the late show?

–Paraphrased from Max Maven, Magician

Your schedule today includes back-to-back sections of an introductory course in Management Principles.  The topic for today’s lecture is motivation theory.  Although you have updated your examples to be current, the basic material has not changed in years.  How do you deliver the material with enthusiasm and a sense of importance?  How do you get your finger on the pulse of the students in each of the two classes today?  How do you proactively manage the attention of the class to maximize learning?

Tonight, you are going out with friends to a comedy club.  You will see the second of two evening shows.  The comics come on stage, and you wonder if they have concerns similar to yours.  They have performed the same show every night this week.  How do they keep it fresh for each audience?  How do they read the room to adjust their delivery to maximize the impact of their act on the audience?

There are strong parallels between the two situations–you have a set lecture; the performers have a set act.  Yet you need to personalize your delivery for the particular group of students present in your class, and the performers have to adjust their routines to take advantage of the particular personalities of their current audience.

We–a college professor and a professional comedy-magician–have found that audience management is a common challenge.  The purpose of this paper is to inform the college professor of audience management techniques from the perspective of the professional entertainer.  This paper is NOT concerned with methods for entertaining the class.  This paper is about improving the quality of the learning experience by maximizing your delivery of material in the classroom.  A strong prerequisite of that is managing the class, by treating it as an audience. 

Control

Good magic without proper attention management is an impossibility – Tommy Wonder, Magician (The Books of Wonder, p. 16)

The issue of control is the centerpiece of this article.  While the word often carries negative connotations, in this case we use it to mean controlling the experience of the class in order to maximize the probability of the class’s learning.  It does not refer to controlling the will of class members, or taking away their right or ability to go beyond your planned lecture and ask interesting questions.  For example, telling the class that the topic of today’s class is group dynamics, or not allowing someone to play music from a boom box during class, are forms of control.

Tommy Wonder discusses this goal of helping the audience understand what we are trying to convey in The Books of Wonder, “Simply stated, we must present our work in a clear and efficient way if it is to be effective.  It is then only logical that we should direct the audience’s attention continuously, from one important point to the next.  If this isn’t done, attention may stray to something unimportant, which may complicate or confuse the information the audience receives.”  (Wonder, p. 14)  If you do not use lesson plans or formal outlines of your lecture material, consider the relevance of Wonder’s next comments:  “With continuous direction we control the attention of the audience, focusing it where we want by presenting a series of important and relevant ideas and occurrences.” (Wonder, p. 14)  A professional entertainer structures his or her act to lead to certain emotional destinations for the audience.  Should we do less for our students in helping them reach their intellectual destinations?

Reading yourself

Audience reaction reflects the way the audience perceives you.  If only you’ll pay attention to it, audience reaction will allow you to achieve one of the most difficult things in the world, to see yourself as others see you. — Darwin Ortiz, Magician   (Strong Magic, p. 238).

One key in successfully managing a room of people is to know what they are experiencing.  What do they see and hear in you?  This is an important and difficult question.  Sometimes we have an image of ourselves we wish to project. Oftentimes we convince ourselves that other people see this same image.  But sometimes we are more honest. It is in these moments that we are quite aware of whom we actually are.  However, neither of those is the relevant path.  What is relevant is to focus on what the class perceives.  The way we look, sound, and move affects the way others perceive us; if we throw people off by presenting contradictory stimuli, we catch them off guard and consequently they may miss something important in the educational session.

Video equipment greatly facilitates our discovery of the image we project.  Videotaping several lectures, presentations, etc., can provide us with adequate data to ascertain what others see.  Asking a few honest and opinionated people to watch the video with us will be a worthwhile (and a probably humbling) experience.  Using video to help identify our ‘stage persona’ is a bit more threatening than the more customary practice of using it to improve presentational technique, but it is integral to performing well in the classroom.

Mac King grew up believing he would someday be performing magic on stage as a suave, debonair, James Bond-type.  Then one day he saw himself on videotape and realized what all his audiences had seen–he was a dork.  There was no mistaking him for the debonair type.  Mac began working with his natural attributes, and developed a stage act based on the dorky characteristics of his persona.  The result? Today he is one of the world’s most successful comedy magicians.  The essence of his success was recognizing the image he was projecting and working with that.

Another revelation we might encounter is in the way we respond to student questions.  A condescending or flippant tone in our replies may be unintentional, reflecting our experience of hearing similar questions in prior semesters.  However, to the students in this particular class, the question is new and unique, deserving our full attention and respect.  Communicating anything less in an answer is going to harm our image as educators, and this in turn will affect students’ experience with the material we present.

Reading the audience

Say kids, what time is it? — Buffalo Bob Smith, Howdy Doody’s Creator and Co-Star

In a comedy act, it is important for the entertainer to judge the mood of the audience.  How can we speak of the collective mood of a group of people?  In the same way that we can describe the (dominant) culture of an organization, we can characterize the audience’s mood.  Anyone who used to watch Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show will remember his observations about the rowdiness of Friday audiences.  Teachers of multiple sections of a course can notice the differences in collective personality between sections.  Moreover, that class mood can vary from day to day.  It is just as useful for a teacher to get a read on the class’ mood on a particular day as it is for the entertainer to get a feel for that of his/her audience.

An entertainer will build some slight bit into the act to serve as a barometer.  Perhaps it is a joke, or some other bit of business, to hear and see the audience’s reaction.  A good audience is one that, compared to other groups the entertainer has experienced, reacts strongly.  In this case, the entertainer can go directly into the act.  If the audience is judged to be a bit weak in the response, the entertainer will spend time working on warming up the audience.  Given that one of the entertainer’s goals is a strong, favorable reaction to the act, this is time well spent.

In the classroom, it is helpful to see how tuned-in the class is.  One method of checking is to informally ask a question or two about the subject matter before the official start of class.  If the class is not up to speed in terms of attention or energy, review a previously discussed point as a method of warm up.  Another option is discussing a current event in the context of the course material.

Eye contact

Look into my eyes! — Count Dracula

Eye contact is one of the most important ways to maintain the connection between you and the class.  We have all been in a situation where someone is talking to us, but the speaker’s eyes wander all around the room.  The effect is one of insincerity, as if the speaker is looking for someone more interesting or important.  We have all experienced the opposite as well: When someone speaks to us with their entire person.  In this situation, we feel like we are the most important person in the world to the speaker.  Eye contact is the distinguishing characteristic between these situations.  It is the difference between feeling important and feeling insignificant.

In his book The Five Points in Magic, professional magician Juan Tamariz describes a technique for maintaining eye contact with an audience.  To use this technique, we can imagine there are threads running from our eyes to the eyes of the class members.  The threads are symbolic of direct eye contact.  Keep those threads stretched by looking into the eyes of each section of the room.  That is, look directly into the eyes of someone in each section of the class.  With a small class, we can look into everyone’s eyes.  Do not simply pan the room looking at no one in general.  Do not ignore a section of the class.  Making either of these mistakes results in a sagging of the thread, which translates into a sagging of the class members’ interest in what we are saying or doing.

It is important to realize that individuals in a section of a class serve as representatives of that section.  Making a good connection with one or two persons in a section creates positive energy and affect throughout.  Alienating one or two persons has the opposite effect.

When we establish a positive connection with a member of the class, we may get a small reaction from him or her.  If that person nods her head or smiles slightly, other people will note her reaction.  When others in the class see their peer, it cannot help but enhance overall opinion of us and our material.

The threads can be broken if we alienate or ‘turn off’ an individual or section of the class, either through the spoken word or inappropriate facial expressions.  If the thread breaks, give some extra attention to the person who has been alienated.  This ties the thread back together.

Your Voice

Her voice is full of money.  – Jay Gatsby, in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s  The Great Gatsby

Effective use of our voices is essential to our performance in the classroom.  Any drama or voice teacher can describe the importance of using the lungs rather than the throat to power our voices.  This ensures that we do not become fatigued from shouting.  Tamariz makes the same point.  He also describes the need to direct our voices towards the front of the room, in a three-quarters arc both right and left.  This allows us to engage different parts of the audience by speaking directly to them. It also allows us to establish eye contact with more people.

Those who pace back and forth while lecturing need to recognize a potential problem.  While talking to the people on the left side of the room, the people on the right side are further from the source of the voice. They are less likely to hear well.  Voice projection is very important.

Another concern is variety in both volume and intonation.  In Magic and Showmanship:  A Handbook for Conjurers, Henning Nelms suggests that a monotone voice is unlikely to hold an audience’s attention. Tamariz observes that by varying the volume, “we are able to reach a maximum of tension and concentration” Tamariz, p. 19).  The tension of course, assists in generating interest in what we are saying.  Nelms also brings the idea of concentration into the discussion by observing, “Performers in all fields often assume that casual remarks which are not essential to understanding can be missed by the audience without real loss.  This might be true if the performer displayed a placard that read, ‘My next statement does not really matter.’  Without such warning, the spectator believes that the line is important.” (Nelms, p. 274-275)  We must choose our words carefully if we want to help the students distinguish between what is important and what is simply an offhand comment. 

Body Language

Every performer needs to control the attention of his audience. – Henning Nelms, Magician.  (Magic and Showmanship, p. 178)

While our voices are our primary instrument in delivering material in the classroom, our body language also plays a role in the communication process.  Mimes rely exclusively on body movements and facial expressions to convey meaning; we should take notice of the importance of these aspects of our delivery.  We are not suggesting working out a pantomime routine to demonstrate Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but rather to consider the message sent by body language and compare that with the spoken message.  Consistency is the key.  Conflicting messages will lead to misunderstanding by our students.  Distracting mannerisms can also negatively affect the students’ learning experience.

People often do not know what to do with their hands when speaking.  Recognize that hand motions (such as waving) can distract from the overall message you are presenting.  We must think about using our hands to express ourselves in harmony with our message.  Pointing, counting, and gesturing with our hands can all add to the consistency of our presentation.  We should work on moving our hands and arms gracefully, coordinating their movements with each other and with our bodies.  We would do well to use the old actor’s trick of moving our “hands and arms as if … under water” (Tamariz, p. 29).

Although the hands may constitute the most expressive part of the body, they are not the only element of concern here.  Nelms’ discussion of the placement of the entire body has relevance for those of us who work in front of a class: 

The actor’s rule–Never turn your back on an audience–applies even more strictly to the

conjurer.  When you turn your back, you cannot see the spectators and they cannot see

your face.  Under these conditions, you are in danger of losing control.  Furthermore, if

you speak with your back to the audience, your words are muffled, and your lips—which

are the visual source of information—are hidden (Nelms, p. 297).

Writing on a chalkboard usually necessitates turning our back on the class.  Be cognizant that doing this means losing eye contact with our students. We must make certain that we do not speak into the chalkboard when trying to talk to the class.

Props

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.  –  Jaques, in William Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

Tamariz’s excellent book does not explore a potential “sixth point in magic”–the prop.  Obviously, magic performances contain props, as the object of the magic that takes place.  One purpose of the prop is to direct the audience’s attention, in order to make certain the audience can experience the magic that occurs.  This use of the prop as an attention-directing device has application in the classroom as well.  Props in the classroom take a different form than a magician’s cards, coins, or doves.

Chalkboards, overheads and computer projections all serve as props for the teacher.  A simple diagram on an overhead or flipchart serves very well as a prop, as a focal point for the class.  Three-dimensional objects, such as examples of products, also fill the role of prop.  The key to using the prop is to avoid overusing it. 

That being said, we should not be afraid to refer to the prop.  Once introduced, in future classes we can recall the image of the prop to help the class remember the ideas presented with the initial exposure to the prop.

Hecklers

When you work with people, you must be in control.  If you cannot control, you do not belong on the stage. — Al Koran, Magician

Hecklers occasionally make their presence known in the classroom, although not in the same manner as in a comedy club.  We define heckler to mean someone who attempts to put you in a bad light for purposes other than the pursuit of knowledge.  An embarrassing question about a gap in your coverage of a theory is perfectly justifiable if the student is trying to sort out the material.  Any good teacher will admit a previous oversight, provide the correct information, and at some level be grateful the class now is set straight.  A heckler’s question, however, is clearly unrelated to learning.

It is important to remember the classroom contains other students besides the heckler.  Although we may be tempted at times to put the heckler in his or her place, it is generally a bad idea to get the best of any individual only to lose the respect and support of the rest of the class.

Taking an idea from Eugene Burger’s book, Secrets and Mysteries for the Close-Up Entertainer, try to understand why people heckle.  What do they want?  What are they trying to achieve by heckling?  The answer is probably recognition.  They want to interact with us.  They want to be involved.  They want to be part of the lecture/discussion process.  (Burger, p. 42)

Rather than try to out-heckle the person, use the energy created by the heckling incident to get the others more involved.  Ask if anyone else has the same understanding or opinion as the heckler.  Ask a rhetorical question that addresses a point made by the heckler, and then answer it. If the heckler made a joke, laugh.  Humor is often an effective device in speeches or lectures.  It really does not matter if the source of the humor is from the class or us.  The important thing to remember is to manage it to help the class learn. 

The need for attention is what motivates a heckler.  One standard method of dealing with this is to give the heckler the attention he or she seeks. (King, 1995)  If we acknowledge their comment, thereby acknowledging them, often that will be sufficient to end the heckling. (King, 1993)

            Another response is to appeal to the heckler’s peers to apply some type of pressure.  This should done subtly as possible.  For example, a few years ago an industry executive was guest speaking in an MBA class.  One of the students made an inappropriate and particularly negative comment.  The speaker did not confront the student, nor did he look in his direction.  The speaker looked at a different part of the classroom, and smiled as he said, “And my wife thinks I’m off having fun when I visit the university.”  The class laughed with the executive, not at him, and communicated quite clearly to the heckler the group’s empathy for the speaker.  The heckler did not say another word.

 Know material so well you can focus on presentation

Make sure you’re right, then go ahead. – Davy Crockett

A magician performing a manipulation cannot afford to concentrate on the mechanics of the routine while performing.  The presentation commands all of the performer’s attention.  Hundreds or thousands of practice sessions are necessary to achieve automation of the manipulation. In this way, the magician is able to focus his or her attention on the audience members, in order to make their experience meaningful.

As teachers, we will never give the same lecture hundreds of times.  Yet there are modules of information we present that stay relatively constant.  For new material, it is vital that we not only understand it and how it relates to other course material and current events, but we must also anticipate likely questions.  In other words, we should over-prepare.  By doing so we can focus on the teaching of the material, rather than the material itself.

A related point is to make sure we are interested in the material we present. Sometimes we are required to present particular material in a course. However, the means by which we present it is our choice.  We can choose the examples, context, illustrations of applications, etc.  If we are uncomfortable or unfamiliar with either the material or the form of presentation, the class will notice.  We should never settle for weak or questionable material.  (Burger, pp. 18-19)

Conclusion

We, as educators, are not the focal point of the classroom experience.  The students are.

                                                                                                            — Joe Dobson, Teacher

            Classroom dynamics must be proactively managed in order to maximize the classroom learning experience.  To shirk the task of facilitating this crucial component of the experience leaves the classroom no distinctive advantage over correspondence courses or web-based learning.  Put another way, an effective teacher adds value to the classroom beyond his or her knowledge base.  If the only contribution needed from the teacher were as a knowledge base, teachers would be better utilized as authors of lecture notes.

            Nevertheless, the classroom offers more than one-way transmittal of knowledge.  Who of this readership has not relished the experience of a particularly strong ‘teaching moment’?  Those moments do not happen without interpersonal interaction—the essence of a good classroom.

            This article has shared some insights from a professional entertainer, and demonstrated their applications to teaching.  The emphasis has been on managing the impact of your teaching efforts.  We feel strongly that keeping the students’ interest level high and focused is vital for a successful classroom experience.  Doing so does not require entertaining the students, but it does require proper management of the classroom process.

This paper is based on a premise that is captured in John Mulholland’s advice to neophyte magicians in 1963:

“Performing magic is very much like driving an automobile.  Being a skillful operator is not enough and the safe driver is the one who pays constant attention to what is being done by drivers of other cars on the road.  In magic the audience is a component part of the show.  The magician works with his audience and not merely in front of them…”  (Mulholland, p. 318).

References

Burger, E. (1982). Secrets and mysteries for the close-up entertainer. Chicago: Philip R.         Willmarth. 

King, M. (1993). On the road. MAGIC: An Independent Magazine for Magicians, 3 (4), 16.

King, M. (1995). On the road. MAGIC: An Independent Magazine for Magicians, 4 (8), 21.

Mulholland, J. (1963).  Mulholland’s book of magic. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. 

Ortiz, D.  (1994). Strong magic: Creative showmanship for the close up magician. Silver Springs, Maryland: Kaufman and Greenberg.

Nelms, H. (1969). Magic and showmanship: A handbook for conjurers. New York: Dover Publications, Inc. 

Tamariz, J. (1987). The five points in magic. Madrid, Spain: Juan Tamariz.

Wonder, T. (1996). The books of Wonder. Seattle, Washington: Hermetic