Dear OB colleagues,
Debra Shapiro asked that I share my recent AOM Traditional Paper Presentation Session experience with you all. This year Session Chairs were encouraged to try something novel to improve the session experience for both presenters and audience members. I took up the challenge, tried something a bit different, and it was a hit! You may wish to try something similar next year if you are asked to Chair a session. Here are the details:
I gave each presenter about 10 minutes to provide the audience with a brief summary of their work. Following this, I had each presenter facilitate a small group discussion (groups were simply comprised of folks who were sitting near each other). I gave each group a slip of paper containing a comment and discussion question to get the conversation started, but I also encouraged them to ask the presenter specific questions about his/her paper and/or explore any other interesting topics that arose in the 20 minutes. In the last 15 minutes each group shared with the rest of the room all of the interesting points that were raised in their small group discussions and we had a large group discussion based on that. I've attached the slide that I used to explain the format of the session to the attendees (feel free to adapt it for your own use).
I received a lot of very positive feedback about the format. Some example comments: shy people felt more comfortable asking questions and contributing in the smaller groups, attendees appreciated the opportunity to introduce themselves to colleagues in their area, presenters liked the fact that they could 'get into' more detailed questions and explanations of their work, and when I asked the group for their honest feedback about the format, they were all overwhelmingly positive and said that they would like to see more of this type of session in the future (one attendee said that she will use this format in her other conferences).
Hope you all have a wonderful term!
Samantha
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Samantha D. Montes, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Management University of Toronto - Scarborough 1265 Military Trail Toronto, Ontario, Canada M1C 1A4 Phone: (416) 208-4892 Fax: (416) 287-7392 Email: montes@utsc.utoronto.ca