Chapter 9 Reflections: They Snooze You Lose by Lynell Burmark

The things we take in through our senses cause us to feel emotions, whether they be good or bad emotions. As Burmark states in this chapter, “emotions stick!”(Burmark, 2011, Kindle Location 3251). You want to connect with your audience on an emotional level to get the learning to stick with them. Emotions take the content very quickly to the well organized storehouse in the brain. Learning that sticks with you is stored in the well organized storehouse and learning that is difficult to retrieve at a later date is just thrown in the “junk drawer” of the brain. You may be able to retrieve the stuff in the “junk drawer”, but it will take longer and it is not as efficient.
Art and images are a great example of things that make us feel emotional. Somewhere in our DNA is something that connects these images so strongly to our emotions that we as humans have dedicated buildings to preserve and protect these images. Why else would entire museums be created to house works of art? That tells me that our emotions are tied so strongly to them that by protecting them, we are declaring they are sacred to us in some way.
Putting your audience in the right frame of mind at the beginning is very crucial to your role as the deliverer of the information. Connecting to their emotions through visual and auditory media is a great way to accomplish this. You don’t want them to just be entertained for those 60 minutes, but take the information and store it for later use.

Burmark, Lynell (2011-06-28). They Snooze, You Lose: The Educator's Guide to Successful Presentations (Kindle Location 3251). John Wiley and Sons. Kindle Edition.