Presentation Skills and Teamwork - twiki.ph.rhul.ac.uk · Presentation Skills! Your mission…! & Teamwork! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 2! Communicating your brilliant ideas effectively

Dr. S. Gibson & Dr. S. Boogert

Presentation Skills and Teamwork: Introductory Session

!   Mission & reward

!   Teams

!   Topics

!   Talk tips

!   Prepare

Outline

1

Second Year post exam bonanza, June 2013

Your mission… Presentation Skills & Teamwork

S. Gibson & S. Boogert 2

!   Communicating your brilliant ideas effectively to your peers is an essential part of physics research (esp. workshops, conferences) and life in general.

!   Your mission is to research, prepare and deliver a physics-related talk in teams of 4-5 people to the rest of the Second Year.

!   Each member of your team will give their share of the talk.

!   A prize will be awarded for the best talk…

!   Learning outcomes:

•  Develop your ability to research and deliver a talk on a subject, and also to listen, comprehend and question other talks on related subjects.

•  To develop a capacity for independent work as part of a larger group.

•  To encourage collaboration in achieving a set goal within a defined time.

•  To develop interpersonal skills, particularly effective presentation and teamwork.

•  To learn how to give a succinct talk on a body of physics knowledge.

The Prize for best team talk: Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   The winning team will be treated to an all expenses paid trip to CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland.

!   Aim to coincide with CERN open days in September to enable underground visit to ATLAS / CMS...

Teams and voting Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   In the spirit of healthy competition and to avoid any unfair bias, the membership of the teams will be assigned by a random (Monte Carlo) generator.

!   Random teams are part of the challenge:

•  Teamwork often means getting along professionally with those you may not choose to associate with personally.

•  All team members must work hard and present well for the team to win – help each other!

•  Remember upon the conduct of each depends the fate of all. ~Alexander the Great

!   Each team has 25 minutes for the talk (including set up) + 5 minutes for questions (30 minutes total).

!   Count on ~5 minutes per person when in teams of 5 (max).

!   Please keep to time – all talks must fit within the 3+3 hours of talks on Tuesday 11th and up to 3 hours on Wednesday 12th)

!   Everyone will cast their votes for the best team talk (moderated by Dr Gibson and Dr Boogert).

Talk Topics Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   You’re free to choose the physics-related topic that your group will present.

!   Some suggestions / ideas follow, or you can think up your own topic (please agree it with us).

!   Please bear in mind that the topic must be:

•  Related to physics(!)

•  Researchable on the timescale of the project – are resources accessible?

•  Easily explained at a level appropriate to your audience (who will be voting).

•  Suitable for dividing the presentation into sections, one per team member.

!   Types of presentation:

•  Fundamental / related to 2nd year lecture topics.

•  Interesting piece of exciting physics of e.g. Historical discovery, recent advances in physics.

•  Grand ideas (science extrapolation).

Some ideas for topics Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   Related to 2nd year lecture topics:

•  Atomic and nuclear:

•  Problems with normal QM -> QED, from Schroedinger to Dirac

•  Optics:

•  Photonic crystal fibres, super high power lasers, optical computers.

•  Electromagnetism:

•  Maxwell (wave field theory) <-> Faraday (experimentation).

•  Thermodynamics:

•  How to cool or heat things to extremes?

•  Quantum mechanics:

•  Historical overview of development / interpretation.

•  Advances in quantum cryptology or quantum computing

•  Mathematics that saved physics: Matrix formalism / Calculus

Some ideas for topics Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   Related to 2nd year lecture topics:

•  Particle detectors and accelerators:

•  Medical applications. (anti-protons / Bragg peak).

•  The Solar Neutrino Puzzle and neutrino oscillations (Ray Davis)

•  ATLAS, CMS. How general purpose detectors work? Higgs discovery.

•  Future accelerators: Plasma wakefield designs. Linear colliders.

•  The Solid State:

•  Limits on current semiconductor devices (CPU, memory)

•  Astronomy:

•  Large future facilities: SKA, VLT, JWST.

•  High energy cosmic rays / detectors in space: AMS

•  Gravitational wave searches (LIGO, LISA)

•  Evidence for dark matter / energy (galaxy rotation curves) and searches

Some more ideas… Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   Some interesting piece of exciting physics or historic discovery:

•  Recent discoveries (neutrino oscillations / Higgs Boson …)

•  Genetic engineering, biophysics

•  Computing, progress of large scale computers

•  Challenges for autonomous vehicles / robotics / self driving car.

•  Nanotechnology and benefits of nanomaterials

•  Recent advances in graphene

!   Grand ideas: what if? (science extrapolation):

•  What if the mass of the particles changed (e.g., Me = Mp)?

•  Or the coupling constants changed?

•  Cosmology with a different speed of light?

•  Limitations on human space flight to Mars

Talk examples Presentation Skills & Teamwork


!   What in your opinion, makes a good talk?

!   Who has seen a good talk?

•  What was is about?

•  How many people

•  Who were the audience?

•  What made it good?

! http://www.ted.com/

! http://www.ted.com/talks?lang=en&event=&duration=6&sort=newest&tag=24

! http://www.ted.com/talks/lucianne_walkowicz_finding_planets_around_other_stars.html

! iTunesU

!   The Feynman Lectures On Physics

!   ATLAS / CMS Higgs Discovery?

! https://indico.cern.ch/conferenceDisplay.py?confId=197461

Scenarios Presentation Skills & Teamwork


Think about:

!   Where might you be expected to give a talk?

Scenarios Presentation Skills & Teamwork


Think about:

!   Where might you be expected to give a talk?

•  Departmental seminar

•  Workshop / conference

•  Lecture

•  Job interview

•  Business meeting

•  Sales pitch

•  Siblings wedding…

•  Prime ministers questions…

Audience and message Presentation Skills & Teamwork


Think about:

!   Who are you talking to?

!   Why are you talking?



Think about:


•  Fellow students

•  Prospective employers

•  Members of the public or press

•  Eminent scientists…




Think about:


•  Fellow students

•  Prospective employers

•  Members of the public or press

•  Eminent scientists…


•  What is the message?

•  Main points of the talk

•  How many? How to present them?

•  What do you want people to remember about you and your work?

Choice of level and topic Presentation Skills & Teamwork


Think about:

!   Too easy

•  May come across as boring or patronising…

!   Too hard

•  Risks losing most of your audience at slide 1.

•  Don’t have to go into every detail.

!   Gentle and clear introduction

•  Everyone needs to know what your talk is about.

Schedule Presentation Skills & Teamwork


TIME Mon 3 June Tue 4 June Wed 5 June Thu 6 June Fri 7 June TIME Mon 10 June Tue 11 June Wed 12 June Thu 13 June Fri 14 June

Week 1 Week 1 Week 1 Week 1 Week 1 Week 2 Week 2 Week 2 Week 2 Week 2

11:00

12:00

13:00

14:00

17:00

09:00

10:00

12:00

11:00

15:00

16:00

17:00

09:00

10:00

Intro session

HLT2

Review anddiscussion

MBLT

TalksMBLT

Talks and feedback

MBLT

TalksMBLT

PHYSICS TIMETABLE - SECOND YEAR POST EXAMINATIONS

16:00

13:00

14:00

15:00

Preparation for Thursday… Presentation Skills & Teamwork


Suggested plan for Thursday:

!   Decide on your topic as a group today.

!   Divide the topic into areas to research and assign members to go and research each area.

!   Aim to meet regularly amongst your team before Thursday and/or use your TWiki to collate material / ideas.

! http://twiki.ph.rhul.ac.uk/twiki/bin/view/Students/UnderGraduates/WebHome

!   Prepare an outline of the talk to show your progress on Thursday. We will expect to see:

•  A clear plan of who is presenting which part.

•  Results of research on topic areas.

•  Material (pictures / references).

•  Basic structure of the talk (titles, subtitles)...

!   Good luck!

Documents

Presentation Skills and Teamwork - twiki.ph.rhul.ac.uk · Presentation Skills! Your mission…! & Teamwork! S. Gibson & S. Boogert! 2! Communicating your brilliant ideas effectively