From Boring Bug Lectures to Interactive Invertebrate Learning - Using Audience Participation Software to 'Actively' Transform Grains Industry Training

Insect identification workshops undertaken by the extension team under the Grains Research and Development Corporation's National Invertebrate Pest Initiative aim to raise the awareness, profile and importance of correct invertebrate identification in order to up-skill grains industry personnel to adopt more sustainable pest-management practices. To promote greater audience interaction and encourage active learning, we adopted and applied the interactive TurningPoint software technology in our workshops. Benefits included: instant assessment for participants enabling targeted learning; immediate determination of participants' prior knowledge and experience for trainers; and standardised evaluation processes for quality assessment, delivery and participants' learning experience. Over 1,000 participants have attended these workshops across Australia and other industry-related extension projects (e.g. biosecurity) have aligned with these activities. Three key lessons from the reported work are: (1) TurningPoint adoption leads to highly interactive workshops; (2) TurningPoint enhances participants' learning experience; and (3) TurningPoint provides dynamic avenues for participant input and evaluation.