Tip & Exercise: Are my students liking it?

I believe that we can have more different types of people as improv teachers. To encourage you to start, or to improve your teaching, every month I will share with you a tip and an exercise.

Tip: Notice the signals from students

Whether you are a beginning teacher, or already more advanced, it can be difficult to know: are my students even liking this? This little voice in our brain is not just annoying: it takes us out of the moment, and into our heads. Exactly where we don’t want to be!

So how do you ‘read the room’? Be it the workshop space or the Zoom room.

The most important tip I have for you is this: understand that every human is different in how they express “I like this”. That means that you as an improv teacher will get a load of signals, that can mean “I like this”, or “I don’t like this” and anything in between.

From my experience, here are some ways students can show that they like your class:

They smile
Their shoulders relax during the workshop
They get up / raise their hand when you ask for a volunteer
They ask questions
They lean in when watching a scene
They write down notes
They show up to your class
They sign up for a next workshop
They listen intently when you speak
They laugh out loud
They tell you that they liked it
They tell someone else that they liked it
etc. etc.

Important to realise is: not every student will show every signal, and even: not every signal is a guaranteed “I am liking it” message. (I know, frustrating!)

But how do you then know for sure?

You don’t.

You just have to get to know your students, and sprinkle a little bit of trust over yourself. You got this.

Want to get 3 of my personal examples with the list above? Check out my 9 min. podcast or the audio player below.

Exercise: The Best Of

Here is a way how you can apply this tip into an exercise for your online or offline class.

Especially with short form students, I love ending a longer course with a Best Of for the last class. For this I first remind the students which games we have done throughout the weeks.

I then ask them to vote on which ones they would like to do for the last class. You can do this in conversation, on a whiteboard or via a poll in the closed Facebook group.

From the vote results, I pick a selection and after a short warmup we just do one game after another. We don’t debrief a lot, we just play-play-play as many of our favourite games.

I use this class structure to end the course on a ‘high’, while also learning for myself what content resonated with them the most.