A New Type of Grading

A teacher scribbles a breakdown of the last exam grades on the projector: 65 A’s, 107 B’s, 98 C’s, and 43 F’s.  Average: 82.5.

A number of students feel great because they easily beat the average.  Others feel shitty—they blew it and seeing all those A’s is salt in the wound.  And then the grades are erased from the board.

But instead of just reporting the grades, what if the instructor offered this instead: if the class average on the next exam increases by five points, everyone gets five bonus points on the next exam.

Or what if she went a step further, putting students in small groups with an equal distribution of A, B, and C students in each group?  And offered each student five bonus points if his group’s next exam average increased by five points? 

Would students work harder, knowing that classmates are counting on them?  Collaborate more?  Form study groups and foster a community of learning rather than just trying to master the content solo?

Group incentives in higher education are on my mind, but the logic applies to everything we do:

The next time I run a contest for my sales force, I’ll break the reps into small groups and incentivize the performance of each group, not just individuals.  The result I expect: sales reps will not only work harder, feeling accountable to one another, but share valuable advice with other members of their group, teaching their colleagues how to be more successful.

Too often in life, we reward winners and brand others as “losers” without providing any reason for individuals to help one another.  What we should be doing is incentivizing collaboration and the success of the entire group.  If we want better results, we need a new type of grading.

Tag Teaming Your Audience

How long will an audience tolerate you talking at them before they zone you out?  Five minutes?  Fifteen minutes?  Fifty minutes?

From my experience, it’s about three.  

I’m not talking about an audience full of kindergarteners, either.  I’m talking about colleagues and potential customers—I’ve lost the attention of both after just three minutes.

This problem of attention span is irrespective of our skill as orators.  Everyone gets zoned out  eventually.  The soothing baritone of James Earl Jones or the wit of Jim Carrey doesn’t save them.  If you simply talk at people, they will stop paying attention…it’s just a matter of when.

Given the three minute attention span of our audience, we as presenters can:

1)      Just not show up. 

2)      Ignore the problem and continue to orate for as long as feel we need.

3)     Make changes to our presenting style that lead to better engagement.

If you chose #3, you’re like me.  One of the biggest changes I made was a very simple one.  When I present with a team, I construct my presentation script so no one talks for longer than three minutes in a row. 

A change in presenters jolts the audiences, reinforcing the focus of those that are still listening and stirring those that we’ve lost back to attention. 

When we present, we’re battling technology, social media, and even sleep for our audience’s attention.  Use well-timed jolts, like switching presenters, in your quest to engage listeners.