A Student’s Guide Presentations
To Making Yor Presentation Count
A. Why do a Presentation?
1. Purposes of Student Presentations
Student presentations may be given for the purposes of :
a. Advocacy
Support a cause
Join a student society
Buy a product or service
Choose the best candidate for the job
Vote for an individual to take up a rol eon committee
b. Training
Demonstrating the use of piece of equipment
Demonstrating a medical procedure
Training someone in the use of a software package
c. Teaching and Learning
Developing a deeper understanding of a topi cor text
Covering specific areas of the curriculum in more detail
Explaining an experiment or cooking process
d. Informing
Describe a new policy
Outline a set of instructions
e. Assesment
2. Pessures and Problems of Giving Presentations
Would prefer to write an essay rather than deliver a presentations
I only seem to learn from the content of my own presentations but not
when i have to listen to ther students.
I don’t know enough about the topic to give a presentation
There is so much information on the topic I cant decide what to include
and what to leave out
I’m nervous of using technology in public
I am always nervous about speaking in public situation.
3. Benefits of Student Presentations
Student-centred participation in their learning
Presentations offer variety and challenges that contrast with regular
delivery by an aca- demic lecturer. Students can sometimes be more
willing to learn from the poor and good performances of their peers than
from their tutors.
Practice in a known environment/situation
Presentations offer opportunities for students to practise performing in a
fairly safe environment. When you have to prepare several presentations
on a course, you will begin to develop the essential skills and transfer
these from presentation to presentation. The academic environment will
probably be familiar to you.
Improving marks earred for a module assesment
Sometimes, presentations give you opportunities for earning a higher
percentage of marks than for written work alone. Students who prefer to
speak rather than write, may be better communicators and presenters in
their use of speech or visuals than in a writ- ten mode. This is because
presentations use different intelligences in addition to the lin- guistic
intelligence needed for essays and reports. In our experience some
students are quite confident for their presentations and work better in
group situations than on their own.
Preparation for skills needed in the workplace
Developing new knowledge and different prespactives on a topic
4. Examples of Student Presentations
1. A seminar presentations
2. A group presentations on a topic allocated to the group
3. An individual presntation for a job interview
4. A demonstration of your skills in using equipment
These heading from a useful acronympacthatc:
Purpose
Assesment
Content
Timing
Handouts
Audience
Technology
Comment
B. What Makes An Effective Presentation?
1. Careful Planning and Preparation
Searching databases and on-line resources for articles
Use of libraries for reviewing relevant resources
Tutorials with academic staff to develop new knowledge
Contact with and visits to organizations
Interview with experts
Construction and testing of models
Developing experiments and analysing result
2. Good Time Management
3. Relevan and Interesting Content
Decide what to include and what to leave out
Choose examples to provides interest and improve understanding
Provide links to futher sources of information
4. Clear Structure
5. Good Communication Skills
1. Verbal Communications
2. Visual Communications
3. Non-Verbal Communications
6. Appropriate Use Of Technologies
7. Clear Supporting Documentation
8. Suitable Audience Partipation
C. Improving Individual Performance
1. Improving The Content
Learn the factual content and structure of the presentation
Rehearse speaking aloud
Adjusting the content to fit the time
Rehersal as part of a group
Rehearse in the physical environment
Practice using your prompts
Rehearse the use of technology
2. Improving Your Individual Performance
Developing your self-confidence when presenting
You can learn to buil dup your confidence
Using your body confidently
Conclusion
Further Reading
D. Presenting As Part Of A Group
1. The context for group work
2. Benefits of working for group presentations
- Teamwork can be motivating
- Winder range of skills and knowledge available
- Group work offers social opportunities
- The group event can be more enjoyable than an individual presentation
3. Problem of working for group presentations
Individual behaviour and loss of control
Different levels of commitment in the group
Difficult group dynamics
Size of the group
Limited development of ideas
Poor decision making
The final group presentation seems fragmented
4. Techniques for effective group work
Create physical and virtual environments
Understand the stages of group development
Consider the composition of teh group
Assign roles and reponibillites within the group
Create a listening and individual goals
Make individual performance visible to the group
Deal with conflict or failure construcively
E. Ten Steps For Preparing Your Presentation
1. Read the briefing details for the presentation
2. Create a task list or mind map
3. Create a time chart
4. Review your exsiting knowledge of the topic
5. Research and read to gain new knowledge
6. Decide on the balance of the content
7. Find relevant examples
8. Identify your audience
9. Create the content
10. Rehearse the presentation
F. Understanding Your Audience
1. Features to consider about the audience
Size of teh audience
Composition of the audience
Reasons and purpoe for being there
2. Audience perspective on your presentation
Student audience
Tutor audience
Employer
3. Conclusion
G. Developing Content And Structure
1. Researching Your content
Finding your way through the literature
Collect examples as you research
Learn from your friends
Creating an effective structure
The audience
2. Developing the structure
Five key points about developing your structure
1. Helping your audience to remember
2. Helping your audience to understand meaning through structure
3. Inolve the audience
4. How much is enough?
5. Be creative in developing your structure
3. Organizing the structure
The opening
The middle
The ending
H. Creating Audio Visual Aids And Handouts
This chapter covers a range of different materials so we have included a listing of
key headings:
What do we mean by audiovisual aids?
Audiovisual aids and support documentation may include:
material circulated to the group e.g. handouts, overhead projector
transparencies, slides, videos/DVDs, graphs and charts, use of chalkboard,
whiteboard or flipchart, electronic information, for example screenshots,
computer software, websites or electronic white boards
Audio aids
Visual aids
Visuals can:
add humour, make your presentation much more memorable, make your
presentation much more varied, make your presentation more fun for all
involved!
What kind of visual aids?
In addition, whatever kind of visual aids you use, you must
make the structure clear to the audience. Think about having
an introductory slide/flipchart sheet to explain to your
audience the overall shape of your visual presentation. This is
very easy to do in a presentation package such as PowerPoint
(see Chapter 9). These can either be used individually or of
course in combination.
How do I choose the best visual aids?
Is the point of the visual aid to:
provide background material?, explain something complicated in a visual
fashion?; emphasize key points?; provide a visual focus?
Tips on preparing your paper copy visual aids – handouts, notes
Tips on preparing your written visual aids – chalkboard,
whiteboard, flipchart
Tips on using artefacts, 3D objects and real life material
Tips on preparing your projected visual aids – films, slides, videos
and DVDs
Tips on preparing your projected visual aids – overhead projector
transparencies or slides
Tips on creating electronic presentations – screenshots, live
websites, computer software, electronic white boards
Making presentations readable
Key principles for organized audiovisual aids
I. Using Power Point Effectivly
1. Background
PowerPoint started out as a graphics program designed by researchers who
wanted to find a quick way of presenting information when bidding for research
funding. PowerPoint was designed in 1987, and the company which produced it
was rapidly bought up by Microsoft. By 2007, PowerPoint totally dominated the
world presenta- tion software market, both in commerce and in education.
2. Whats wrong with power point?
Makes presenters lazy and inclined to think in bullet points, is not good at
presenting data because there is not enough space on the slide, encourages too
much reliance on technological gimics such as slide transitions.
3. What is good about power point?
PowerPoint is a wonderful organizer. You can put all your slides in sequence
and number them, but you can also edit them and change the order at a press
of a button. No- one need ever spill all their slides or acetates on the floor
again!
4. Mistakes That PowerPoint User Commonly Make
Too much reliance on PowerPoint. A common mistake with the
inexperienced presenter is to rely on PowerPoint too much and to structure
the whole presentation around the presentation software. PowerPoint then
ceases to be an aid and becomes the total focus. Instead of being a tool, it
becomes The Presentation.
5. How It Looks
Too many type styles The slide in Figure 9.5 (page 123) is confusing
because of the range of styles. Stick to plain simple styles. For PowerPoint
slides, sans serif styles, i.e. with no tails or curly lines, are preferable to
seriffed or curly styles.
Too small type size, making the text unreadable If you want everyone at
the back to see it, 16 point type size is simply not going to work in a
medium-size or large room, as you can see from the slide below. Go for a
large type size, such as a minimum of 32 point.
6. Tips Getting PowerPoint
a. Think about your audience. What exactly are you trying to achieve? When
are you going to use your visual images? How do you want your audience
to use the support? Think of PowerPoint as a very useful support. But not as
the only resource at your disposal.
b. A simple structure for the whole presentation. Do you need PowerPoint for
the whole presentation? Think about using PowerPoint as the beginning
and ending of your show.
c. Think in terms of ideas, not bullet points. If you are clear about the ideas that
you are trying to communicate, you may find that you can neatly summarize
them in bullet points.
d. Tell a story. If you think of your whole presentation as a narrative, a story,
PowerPoint can be a vital part of that story.
e. By all means, tell a story with a few PowerPoint slides, but remember that
PowerPoint software is not the story. It is part of the medium.
f. Use a storyboard. There is some very useful material on the Microsoft site
about plan- ning your PowerPoint slides with a storyboard.
g. Use images to support the central message. One of the hardest aspects of
presenting is to use visual images that reinforce your message rather than
detract from it.
J. Learning From Presentations
1. A good learning experience – what can you learn from your presentation?
2. How can you help your audience learn from your presentation?
3. Different styles of learning
a. VARK (Visual, Auditory, Read, Kinaesthetic Learning)
b. Importance of a learning environment
c. Other ways of helping learners brains to be fully engaged for your
session
K. Delivering a Presentation as Parto f an Interview
1. Reasons for including presentations as part of the selection process
2. The interview audience
3. How to deliver effective interview presentations: students prespective
a. Preparing for the presentation
b. Delivering the presentation
4. Tips for successful interview presentations
a. Travel light
b. Dont hide behind the technology
c. Contenct and structure
d. After the presentation
5. Conclusions
6. Lager images or not?
a. Tables
b. Visual-graphs and chart
c. Rounding up and down
7. Finding out more about presenting numbers
8. Copyright
9. Plagiarism
10.
