Gaining Audience Involvement: Interactive Teaching Exercises

In order to enhance teaching effectiveness, exercises were devised to involve attendees at train-the-trainer sessions. While focusing on a specific health issue, it is believed that the general principles used here are applicable to a variety of teaching situations. The principal exercise assigns the roles of key stakeholders to participants. This allows articulation of major issues from various perspectives, especially in relation to expression of the divergent views of "opponents" of the majority view. It has been observed that these exercises provide welcome relief in what would otherwise be a long day. They generate useful exchanges and sometimes comic relief.