Tips for Giving an Effective Presentation in Class
Students are often asked to give oral presentations in class. I’ve been pondering the bigger purpose for this as there are a myriad of assessment methods. Is an oral presentation the best way to access knowledge and understanding? How useful is it for students to sit through 19 presentations on the same topic?
Oral language is important in many aspects of life. A goal of educators is to ensure students can voice their convictions and stand up for what they believe in. Studies show that being able to express your knowledge, ideas and feelings and communicate with clarity, enhances cognitive ability. The question is: What are you assessing? The content, the presentation or both?
If you are giving feedback on the visual and oral delivery, it is essential you have clear understandings, guidelines and rubrics that are both explicitly taught and shared with the students prior to the presentations.
We have all been to boring presentations where someone has screeds of small text on powerpoint slides and proceeds to read it word for word. This is commonly known as death by powerpoint! Below are some hints and tips for visual and oral presentations:
Tips to Plan Your Talk
StoryBoard Your Presentation: What are the key points you want your audience to remember? Write these on sticky notes and arrange in a sequence. This allows you to change the order easily. You do not have to start at the beginning. Maybe you start your presentation at the most exciting, tense, impactful part and then add the details before and after.
Rehearse – Rewrite – Rehearse: Practice your talk aloud. If you are going to give the presentation standing, it is recommended you practice standing. Video yourself if you can and watch it later to help you improve. Your voice
will sound strange because how you hear it and how it is recorded sound differently. Notice your hand gestures, eye contact and movements. Rehearse with someone who can give you feedback to improve. Then rewrite, change and edit your talk so it feels better to say aloud and practice again. Top speakers will rehearse the same speech up to sixty times before they give it. That’s why they look so confident.
Avoid Reading Your Presentation: Giving a presentation is not public reading. Use note cards with key points and speak to those. The more you practice the easier this will be.
Talk to the Back of the Room: Projecting your voice is an essential part of giving a great talk. Talk to the people at the
back of the room with a strong clear voice.
Give Eye Contact: Ensure you look up from your notes and give eye contact to your audience. You do not have to look at their eyes directly. Many professional speakers look just above the audience heads with soft eyes, rather than a hard stare.
Once you have your design of your oral presentation, then you may add visual slides. They are not, however, necessary to give an impactful, informative or memorable presentation.
Tips for Effective Powerpoint Slides
The powerpoint is not your presentation or your notes. If the technology fails, your presentation should be able to continue. Your slides are a visual aide to support your message and presentation. The best powerpoints should not be remembered — it’s your messages which you want your audience to recall.
Go for Simplicity: Less is more when it comes to slides. Forty slides in a ten-minute presentation, is one every fifteen seconds which is mind blowing for the audience. They will be visually overloaded. Only use slides if they enhance your message.
Avoid clutter: Too much on a slide can confuse your audience. Use simple, engaging images that enhance your message.
Limit the Words: Use key words if you need words at all. Avoid bullet points as you want your audience to listen rather than read. The brain is unable to read and listen simultaneously. This is because most people read by vocalising the words inside their mind which utilises the same part of the brain as listening. Since both actions, reading and listening — are trying to access the same part of the brain, it is very difficult to process both concurrently.
Avoid Reading the Screen: If you do have words, avoid reading them aloud. Your audience is likely to have read them before you do and therefore it can be annoying that the speaker then reads the words also.
Readability: If you have words, diagrams or graphs on your slides, ensure people at the back of the room can read them easily. If you want your audience to read, give them a handout.
Use High Quality Images: Bold, strong images with clear definition are recommended. Remember to download images with high resolution of about 1024 x 768 pixels, especially if you want the image to be full screen. Avoid using clip art. Remember to give credit for your image
sources. Two great sites to access free images are unsplash.com and pexels.com.
Minimise Transitions & Effects: Just as too many words or a cluttered screen can disengage and confuse the audience, so can too many whiz-bang transitions. They may be cool, however a rotating, twirling, jumping image or slide is more often a distraction from your content. Use
transitions and effects sparingly.
Blank Your Screen: To keep the focus on you, the speaker, when a slide is no longer required to reinforce your talk, add a blank slide between your visuals or press B (for black) or W (for white) on your keyboard to blank the screen. To unblank, press B or W again or just advance to the next slide.
Avoid Jumping Through the Slides: If you suddenly find that a slide you need is not next, or you are running out of time to present, do not quickly flick through the slides. This is confusing and dizzying for the audience. Instead, know the numbers of each slide and type the slide number you want to go to on your keyboard and press enter to advance directly there.