How to manage an audience of vast age difference
It is important to quickly decipher the knowledge and experience of your audience. Often times experience and knowledge is linked to age. Get a pulse of the age range of your audience so that your examples and subject matter will be received well.
What say you??
This is an excellent way to engage individuals of difference ages.
When I have a vast variety of age differences and experience levels in the class it is apparent the very first day. I will give a survey of sorts to find out the common ground of all the students and then try to pair the ones that have less experience with those that have a little more. I set group projects where they have to work together as a team to share and learn from one another. This is effective because some students just learn better that way and it makes the ones "in charge" feel as though they are valued.
Being a doctor at the age of 27 I don't fully agree with this statement, people are constantly thinking that because I am young I must not know much, also the fact that I am blonde probably doesn't help much either. I love to teach students that are older than I am, and I get a kick out of it when I tell them I am under 30 and a doc!
I agree that knowledge and experience are critical to help gauge the audience you're speaking to. I also agree that it seems logical to assume that experience is linked with age and that more mature audience members may have more experience. However, I also think that assumption may be a little bit of a slippery slope.
A presenter absolutely must know the audience to assess the type of delivery she will use, specifically, how technical should the presentation be. I think a great way to engage the audience to determine this level if you don't already know ahead of time, is simply by asking content questions. For me, this helps determine not only the number or types of experiences audience members have, but also the depth of those experiences. In other words, a younger audience member may have a more in-depth and proficient background through education while an older member may have only limited exposure to the same topic just because of limited education. Further, they both may have excellent background while one may be through education and one through actual work experience. Ultimately, I think the key to making sure the subject matter and examples are well-received is having some knowledge of the audience background, and an idea of the age range is certainly helpful to consider.
