Reviewing WinterFest

Posted on February 18, 2024 by by

agreen Posted in Programs

by Deborah Lanser

Introduction

This year’s WinterFest presentations were generally a hit, with members commonly giving them the top ratings of 4 or 5 on the evaluation form. A few expressed some reservations, however, providing ratings between 1 and 3. Likewise, presenters were generally given top marks, albeit sometimes with some constructive suggestions for improvement. Members provided comments about the background materials and the Q&A sessions at the end of each presentation. The Curriculum Committee will use the feedback to assess which sessions might be repeated and how the presenters could improve. Here’s a sampling of the many insightful comments.

Course Content

The positives:

This was an extraordinary presentation.
That was so much fun with great photos and background information.
Informative and engaging–among the best.
Well presented, fully developed and enlightened.
I didn’t want it to end.
Took a very difficult scientific topic and made it very approachable to the nonscientist.
This worked well on Zoom and I suspect even better in an in-person format with added classes.
I’ve been thinking about it all day.
This was a lot of good information that I was completely unaware of.
I definitely benefited from it.

The reservations:

Very intellectual content mostly went over my head.
Could have been simplified.
Perhaps the title or description could have been a bit clearer.
A bit slow. But overall pretty good.
Sometimes left some of us listeners in the dust as too much info.
Important but oh, so dry.
The information was presented in a way that it was hard to take notes.

Presenter

Most reactions were positive:

The presenter was clearly knowledgeable and passionate, making it a pleasure to listen to her.
You don’t get any better than [the presenter].
Lively sense of humor, easily understandable.
Speaker was tightly organized and time flew by.
Presenter had a nice conversational voice and not a “lecture” speaking voice.
The presenter did a great job breaking the material down into understandable chunks.

With some qualifiers:

The material was great but the presenter was not as good as the material.
The almost flippant remarks and tone distracted from the experience.
Class would be better if the presenter were more respectful.
[The presenter] obviously knows her topic but needs to understand that the audience does not.
I might suggest that…for note-takers like me, he leave the informational images on the screen for a bit longer.

Class Participation

I was very moved by the expertise exhibited by so many of our LLI members.
Again our LLI members are smarty-pants, in a good way, and add to the discussion with their questions, comments, and additions.
This session engaged and invoked many comments/questions.
A number of issues came up in the Q&A that might be worth addressing in a future LLI class.
Unfortunately, the class ran so long there wasn’t much time for questions.

Should the Course Be Repeated?

I would recommend this class to others and I would even see it again.
I would recommend this class to people already knowledgeable about or experienced with the topic.
Excellent class. Presenter should teach a full semester course.
I would take again if information was presented in a different manner.
If repeated, maybe simplified and shortened.

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