A guide to giving good presentations and lectures

A guide to giving good presentations and lecturesA guide to giving good presentations and lectures

Applies to

• Summaries by TAs in tutorials

• Lectures

• Conference presentations

• Seminar talks

• Other presentations

Effective lectures and presentations

• Introduction• What is an effective presentation?• Beginning a presentation• Structuring a talk• Ending a presentation• Relevance• Activities in lectures• Visual aids• Delivery skills• Handling questions• Preparation and practice• Contributors• Evaluation

Activity / Summary

• Each topic ends with an activity or summary

• Some are multimedia activities for you to complete

• Others help you reflect on a talk you need to prepare

• The preparation topic has a reflective checklist covering the key questions you need to ask about your talk

What is an effective presentation?

What is involved in effective oral presentations?

Hence you need to: • Organize your thoughts & materials• Present them logically to an audience • Engage your audience’s interest• Promote interactivity with the audience • Express ideas clearly

Assisting the audience to learn something new.Assisting the audience to learn something new.

Understand the audience

Analyze audiences:• Who?

• How many?

• Why do they come?

• What do they already know?

Engage the audience

Engage audiences:

• Start the talk with excitement tailored to the audience

• Relate the topic or subject of the talk directly to their interests

Know their needs

• It is important to know the concerns and needs of your students

• Understand what your students’ need before planning your class

Shift with their needs

• Students are important in shaping course

• Try to include materials which students are really interested in

• Courses can be shifted to meet students’ interests

Topic 1 – Prepare your talk

• Think about the talk you are preparing

• Who are your students/audience?

• What is the purpose of your talk?

Beginning a presentation

Starting a class

• Review of previous lesson

• Clear set of objectives

• Outline of key points/ activities

Last week’s Objectives

• To explore the meaning of professional To explore the meaning of professional learning in schools.learning in schools.

• To examine six key professional To examine six key professional development themesdevelopment themes

• To apply new learning to own contextTo apply new learning to own context





This week’s Objectives

• To explore the foundations of professional To explore the foundations of professional learning in schoolslearning in schools

• To determine levels of school action To determine levels of school action associated with establishing firm foundationsassociated with establishing firm foundations

• To continue our search into the meaning of To continue our search into the meaning of professional development on our school professional development on our school contextscontexts

• To finalize our learning groupsTo finalize our learning groups










Outline

• Footings for professional learning(Deep, wide, durable enough?)

• Activity: Footings in our schools• 4 levels of action

(Personal, Structural, Political, Cultural)• Build on last weeks definition of PD

(Learning opportunities, improved practice, engagement)

• Case study: MOI and professional learning

Our road map

• Introduction• What is an effective presentation?• Beginning a presentation• Structuring a talk• Ending a presentation• Relevance• Activities in lectures• Visual aids• Delivery skills• Handling questions• Preparation and practice

Structuring a talk

Golden rule

1. Tell what you are going to tell2. Tell it3. Then, tell what you have told

“Say what you are going to say, say it, then say it again”

Structuring a technical presentation

Uncover key points by telling 1. Why you did the work2. How you did it3. What you found4. What you think it means

Transition between topics

Tell listeners when finishing one section and starting another.

“I’ve talked about the principle of operation; now I will turn my attention to the experiment”

Concentrate on key concepts

Concentrate on teaching key concepts, rather than detail, and make the fundamental concepts

explicit

Concentrate on key concepts

• Fundamental knowledge is most important

• Technology advances rapidly while the fundamental knowledge remains unchanged

• Teach the fundamentals so that students can establish a solid foundation and be able to adapt and learn new things more easily

Organizing presentations

Organize and sequence information quickly

Organizing presentations

• Chronological – by time

• Spatial – by geographical location

• Topical – by topic

• Problem solving – by questions & answers

• Causal relationship – by explaining reasons

Ending a presentation

Preview & review

Preview and review effectively your most important points

End with impact

End presentations with a review of main points

Concluding a class

• Review the objectives• Review the outline of the class• Check the students’

understanding• Overall summary

Outline

• Footings for professional learning(Deep, wide, durable enough?)

• Activity: Footings in our schools• 4 levels of action

(Personal, Structural, Political, Cultural)• Build on last weeks definition of PD

(Learning opportunities, improved practice, engagement)

• Case study: MOI and professional learning






Part 2, 3 & 4 - Summary

• Introduction ─ need clear purpose statement or roadmap

• Body ─ needs coherent logical structure• Fundamental concepts ─ make them explicit• Fundamental concepts ─ avoid excess detail• Conclusion ─ give summary of key concepts

Relevance

Problem

Question

Concern

What arouses interests

Relevance

Relevance to current issues

• Keep up-to-date with current issues

• Relate to local issues

• To do this you have to make sure you understand the local context

Relevance to local issues

Most of my students are primary and secondary teachers, or those who are interested in becoming teachers.

When I teach, firstly, I will stick to the gist. Since there are various educational theories, I will intentionally select important points for in-class discussion and explanations, hoping to increase learning interest and motivation.

Relevance to real life

(con’d)

Secondly, I will share my teaching experience with my students. Education involves working with people; I wish my students knew how to interact with their pupils. I will integrate my experience with educational theories, allowing my students to know how to apply theories to teaching.

Thirdly, I will design activities for my students to learn actively and in a lively way by employing role-play,


(con’d)

…inviting them to participate, hoping to make the learning environment as lively as possible, and to have them learn as much as possible.

The reasons for using the above methods were because I was deeply affected by human psychology, for it talked about teaching attitudes, that one needed to be ‘affectionate’, knew how to ‘respect’ and to be ‘sincere’ to others.


(con’d)

As an educator, I should be understandable, know the needs of my students as well as their feelings; this was what I meant by being affectionate.

Even though they are my students, I have to respect them and to sincerely interact with them.

I do not mind sharing both my successful and failure experiences with my students for I believe this will enhance their learning.


Avoid excessive detail

Get to the essentials of a message -- avoid the "data dump"

Avoid excessive content

• Pace your teaching so that students can absorb what is being taught

• Teach & motivate students to learn at their own pace

Topic 5 – Relevance

• How are you going to arouse interest?

• How are you going to show your material is relevant?

Activities in lectures

Visual aids

Purpose of visual aids

Visual aids are to help the audience understand the key concepts

Advantage of visual aids

A picture is worth a thousand words!

A good picture is worth much more than a thousand words!

Rules of using visual aids

Keep visual aids simple and legible:

KISS – Keep It Short & SimpleKISS – Keep It Short & Simple

Examples of slides

• Make slides clear

• Need to be visible and large enough for the room

• Not too much on each slide

• Use enough slides BUT NOT TOO MANY

Number of slides

Design the right no. of visuals.

Rule of thumb:

One and half minute per visual.

Delivery skills

Delivery skills

• Project voice

• Do not read talks

• Command attention

• Body language

Project your voice

Look at the audience

Hold up head and speak to peopleat the back of the room

Do not read talks

Do not read your talk, if you read,you tend to speak too fast

Command attention

Command listener attention

by varying your delivery style.

Command attention

• Content Is it:

* Relevant

* Benefiting

* Concerning

Avoid fillers

Avoid saying words too often such as “uh”, “ya”, “you know”, …

Body language

• Use body language to attract attention

• BUT avoid distracting mannerisms

Topic 8 – Activity

• What are the 3 things you should do when delivering your talk?

• What are the 2 things you should not do?

Handling questions

Handling questions

• Anticipate the questions

• Actively try to get questions

• Keep answers short and focused

Interaction management

Deal properly with

challenges/ resistance


Demonstrate good listening


Defuse hostility and avoid defensiveness

Awkward questions

• If you don’t know the answer to a question, compliment the questioner and say so

• Give an answer at the next tutorial

Topic 9 – Prepare questions

• Think of 2 questions you might ask the audience during your talk

Preparation & practice

Practice makes perfect!

Preparation & practice

Reflection checklist ─ large classesneeds improvement = 1 good = 2 excellent = 3

Criteria Rating Comment

Introduction ─ clear purpose statement or roadmap

Body ─ coherent logical structure

Fundamental concepts ─ made explicit

Fundamental concepts ─ avoided excess detail

Relevance ─ gave examples to show relevance of theory

Visual aids ─ helped understanding of content

Delivery ─ spoke clearly and audibly

Feedback ─ maintained eye contact for monitoring

Conclusion ─ gave summary of key concepts

Overall Reflection

Conclusion

A good presentation should enhance your stature as a TA or researcher.

Poorly prepared and delivered presentation will do the opposite.

A lifetime learning process!A lifetime learning process!

The End

Documents

A guide to giving good presentations and lectures