"Can I get a Volunteer?"

Asking "Can I get a volunteer" is usually met by stony silence or that one over-eager student reminiscent of Hermione Granger (Harry Potter reference -- sorry, not sorry).

While asking for volunteers is not always a bad thing, if you're doing it as a way to check for understanding of the group, you're using the wrong metric.

Don't Do This:

If you are checking for understanding in a group as a whole, you generally don't want to as for a volunteer to answer.

When you ask for a volunteer, you will typically get a response from your top performers (and those who "get it"), which will give you a false sense of security as a trainer as to their level of understanding. Asking for volunteers also lets people fly under the radar and fall through the cracks.

OK, so I shouldn't ask for volunteers--so should I just call on someone random? Well, you *can* but most teachers will cringe at this idea. In the education world, calling out individual students to "catch them" for not paying attention is basically illegal in this day and age. Here's why.

Cold Calling Caution

Everybody knows how uncomfortable it is to be called on when you don't know the answer. Sure, you'll get a better idea of whether your learners are getting it, BUT you risk alienating and embarrassing that learner and/or creating a sense of dread in your training. Now *if* you keep a list of all participants and inform the participants up front that you will be calling on participants randomly throughout--showing they will all be called on at some point--that makes it better, but it's still not ideal. So what is the ideal?

Instead, Do This:

When you pose a question, you want to maximize the number of people that engage with the question. How you allow them to respond will depend on the question type.

• Closed-ended questions:

  • Since it's a simple question with one answer, giving all participants a way to actively respond quickly is the best methodology. One way to do this in WebEx is by leveraging the polls & chat. Why? Because all learners can immediately respond to any question you pose instantly there. Bonus to using this method: it gives you instant feedback on what percentage of learners are "getting it" instantly in the moment, so you can see if you need to do any re-teaching/ reinforcing in the moment.

• Open-ended questions:

  • Typically, you want to give participants an opportunity to process their understanding before responding. As such, giving participants an opportunity to have some low-stakes peer-to-peer discussion (ex. WebEx breakout groups) is your best option. That way, learners who *do* understand get to reinforce your teaching and their learning as they explain, and learners who *don't* understand get clarification and answers without the embarrassment of being called out in front of everyone.

    • NOTE: After a breakout session is the one time you *can* ask for a volunteer to share, OR I do think this is the time when it's ok for you as a trainer to call on someone randomly because now they all should be ready to share. This also reinforces to the participants that you expect them all to be ready to share/ participate, BUT you've still given them a chance to get clarification first.