[crazygringo]

> Do NOT ask for a 'show of hands' from the audience.

I completely disagree. If you ask people to raise their hands 10 times on inane questions, then of course it's useless. But correctly used, it:

1) Wakes people up and gets everyone in the room focused

2) Gets people aware of the rest of the audience, and "on the same page"

3) Ideally provides a natural segue into how the point of the lecture directly connects to you

I taught English for years, which was basically public speaking every single day, and getting my students to tie an aspect of the theme/question of the day into their lives, and respond, in the first couple minutes was always key in terms of getting them all on the same page and relating to the material in the rest of the class. It would only occasionally be a show of hands, there are hundreds of other techniques as well (shouting words, asking the nearest person a question, writing a word on a piece of paper, etc.), but these are all fantastic public-speaking techniques. Of course, you need to have the personality to pull them all off, so the audience trusts you and wants to go along, but you can develop that.

Indeed, I think it's a real shame most public speakers don't interact more with the audience through these kinds of things. They boost attention levels and retention levels so much more.

[scott_s]

While I defended the practice below, I consider teaching to be a special case of public speaking. I have "presentation mode" and "lecture mode." There is a lot of overlap, but they're not exactly the same. In presentation mode, I will not stop everything and wait for someone to answer a question. When I'm presenting, I don't expect people to understand everything that I'm saying to the point that they can apply this new knowledge. I would like that, sure, but I think it's presumptuous to assume they would like it as well. Presentations are also often made to peers, and I don't like quizzing my peers in such a way.

In lecture mode, that's the entire purpose of my presentation, so I do it. I have no problem quizzing students in such a way - because if they can't answer the question, then I should change the focus of the lecture to make sure that everyone can before I move on.

Note that I am differentiating between quizzing and polling. I'll poll in both lecture and presentation mode.

[silverbax88]

I accept that you disagree, but this is the exact case I'm talking about. It does not create interaction with the audience. That is a myth. I breezed through college lectures because I knew how to fool the professor into thinking I was engaged. One of those ways is to ask questions or respond to 'the hand-raise maneuver'. It works because the speaker wants to turn attention over to someone else and I'd happily bail them out.