I was watching a presentation this morning and the presenter stopped part way through to ask one of the viewers to stop yawning. Teaching, I have always thought it is your job as the teacher to keep people engaged. If they aren’t engaged, they aren’t learning. Then there’s no real point to being there.

So I can see why you would ask people to stop yawning, but you also have a responsibility to stop that. Take it as a sign that you need to change something up.

Well, the real crux of the matter here is not engagement, but enrollment. Are people there because they want to be there? If so, I think you’ll find minimum yawning. Then it’s a matter of finding something worth enrolling for.