Teaching is a Performance Art: Experiences and Lessons from a Teaching Session

Creating the learning moment

A week ago, I experienced a most exhilarating moment in recent times. I had taught (co-created and led) a session on marketing. The participants seemed to have enjoyed and gained something from the session. I was glad that I took this opportunity, which I was hesitant about earlier, and did not think it would turn out the way it did. More than these, I discovered something about teaching.

Leadership and storytelling are essential ingredients that go into effective teaching.

A friend had roped me in for this session that was intended to be a knowledge sharing exercise on ‘the 4Ps of marketing’ with the junior students. I was thoroughly excited by the opportunity. I’ve believed that good teaching is among the greatest things to be experienced in human life. Few things inspired me more than what ‘great teaching’ did.

In coming to a b-school and going through the case method, my experience and opinion of teaching have only grown. In a b-school classroom, the teacher plays an even more nuanced role. It is here that I’ve experienced the ideals of teaching – to not teach but facilitate learning by making the participants think, discuss, and make a decision. The teacher leads the class.

I’ve had the fortune of participating in the classes of very good professors in my school. When the professor is on a roll, there can be no greater hero. Secretly, I wished that I had the opportunity to teach and sometimes caught myself fantasizing – stimulating curiosity, fostering argument, delivering the ‘aha’ moment, creating new neural pathways and transforming the thoughts of the participants.

However, before I agreed to take the session, I had some concerns that I went over in my mind. Everyone knows 4 Ps, would I be able to add something qualitative? I also feared that the session may turn out to be a bad experience and hit my self-esteem hard.

But I did not want to let go of this opportunity. I agreed. Then began my most anxious and agonizing twenty-four hours. What should the content be? What should be the structure? Will this example useful at all? My anxiety was nothing less than what a presidential candidate would go through as he prepares his speech.

I went about asking my friends for suggestions – what challenges had they faced in applying these concepts, what would make these concepts interesting, and many more such questions. I gained some important insights from these conversations.  A friend thoughtfully suggested that I should think about the manner of interaction with the participants – to put up a question and let them volunteer to answer or randomly pick on people. This was the most helpful advice. I knew from my class experience that randomly picking people was much more effective. I decided to go with it.

I had understood that it is not enough to go into the session with just the substantive content and hope to make it effective. The words I spoke, the enthusiasm I exhibited, and the attitude that I held would matter. I carefully planned my opening statement to the participants.

I was a complete mess as I prepared for the session. I could not take a structured approach to the preparation. But as I got closer to the scheduled time and I saw a structure and style evolving to my plan. I felt better. Even eager to deliver what I had.

In hindsight, having gone through this exercise once, I can now think about this a lot more clearly. I will go ahead and line out how I prepared for this. There were broadly two things I had to prepare myself for – the first was the content I was going to deliver (rather co-create), the second was the teaching manners. Both are equally important. The structure was the base on which these two components stood.

Content:

1. I reflected on the learning moments I’ve enjoyed in the classroom – it was the little exercises and the brainstorming that was most effective – and tried to incorporate it into my plan
2. Use content that reflects you and personal. While I brainstormed for ideal examples, I felt conviction only when I landed on a product that I had thought about earlier.
3. Another way to make the content unique to you is to use an example from the industry that you know better than others. In my case, it was the airline industry. Using this meant that I was not only delivering the understanding of certain concepts but also may end up creating understanding about an industry that at least one or two in the audience may develop a further interest in.

Style (once well-versed, it would remain more or less same):

1. I recollected certain teaching manners of professors that I found effective – cold-calling, Socratic dialogue, intently listening to the student participant, rephrasing what the student had just spoken – and then consciously tried to adopt it. There is another technique that I didn’t consciously plan but something that just happened. It was building up a series of wrong responses from the participants and then delivering the ‘aha’ moment.
2. Sometimes I was cold and unkind and had to take the role of the ‘boss’ to put the participant in the ‘situation’
3. I used hashtags on slides to evoke amusement and interest. The hashtags opened up a new channel of communication that is not overtly brought up during the presentation by it is there and designed amusing enough to engage the participants at subterranean level. I’ve found this to be effective, and this is something I’m going to follow in my general presentations too.
4. I gave an amusing title to the session. ‘Romancing the 4 Ps on a Saturday Night’ sounds more interesting and specific than ‘4 Ps of Marketing.’

Finally, the structure. I had a few considerations in designing the structure:

1. The opening should be unique and captivating. Starting with theoretical concepts may be a damp start. After some thought, I decided to open with an exercise on marketing Ps.
2. There must be a logical flow to the conversation. It must get deeper as we move forward in the session.
3. The content mix is crucial is keep the audience engaged and prevent bored faces. Exercises, theoretical concepts, discussions must be optimally arranged to deliver a smooth experience.

In that one hour, all the twenty-five odd people in the audience contributed to the discussion at least twice. I heard that some people who were earlier shy of participation spoke out today. I believe that there were at least a few who had their own moments of high during the session as they gave their viewpoints. I also believe that there was at least one new thought that they took back with them.

But there was one thing that went terribly wrong that day. It was the feedback. I requested the participants to write a few lines of feedback and all of them, quite diligently, handed me pieces of paper. I later found out that most were vanilla feedback that said that the session was effective or that they loved it. This did not give me any insight on the areas I could improve upon.

But I realized that it was a mistake of mine not to guide them on giving feedback. I have faced difficulties writing feedback when my own professors have asked for it. You have five minutes and most of us end up writing generic points. I later a recollected attending a session, where at the end of the session the speaker gave out printed feedback forms that had segments with specific cues which enabled me to write out some meaningful feedback. That was an effective method. If not that, it is at least advisable to ask the participant to give feedback with a focus on certain parameters.

A few of them came to me at the end of the session and let me know how much they enjoyed the session. Among these were also a few seniors. A friend whose judgment I can trust also said

It was a night that would stay in my memory for a long time.

That night, I realized that a class means much more to the teacher than to the student participants.

That night, I realized that teaching is a performance art and great teachers are artists.

That night, I realized that it was sharing ideas that brought me the greatest joy.

.  .  .

Further Reading

1. Here’s an article from ‘The Atlantic’ that explores teaching as a performance art: Teaching: Just Like Performing Magic