What are some things you could do in a presentation to ensure you would not engage your audience?
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Some Background Info...
Course:
Business Communication (introductory, first-year university course)
Topic:
Presentation Skills (about 10 weeks into a 15-week course)
Learning outcome:
Develop and deliver purposeful, audience-oriented presentations
Purpose:
To share prior knowledge/experiences with presentations and to use as a reflection
tool later in the course when students are creating their own presentations.
Last term, I prompted students to share examples of presentations they liked and discuss why they liked them in a discussion forum. It ended up being a huge notice-board of links to cool presentations, but then it just sat there. It didn’t generate much discussion, it felt disconnected from course, and I think it made some students terrified to think that they had to sound like their favourite TED presenters by the end of the course. I’ve been guilty of using the “discussion forum” as a catch-all for different types of activities, without always being clear with students (or myself) on the purpose.
Next week, I hope to borrow from the first example in this course. I like the “Making Space with TRIZ” activity. As a chronic over-thinker, I found it refreshing to be invited into the topic in a way that didn't require me to craft a lengthy response in order to engage.
I can see how we could use the “worst results” to help later in the course when students are creating their own presentations. They could reflect back on their generated list and have (maybe another?) discussion about strategies to make sure they don’t fall into the traps they’ve seen before.
It just seems like a safe, fun place to start!
