Presentations

Presentations.

Most teachers, particularly older teachers, struggle with technology integration. There was no class in my education degree about how to incorporate technology into the classroom. As I settle into my third decade, with 8 years between my undergrad degree and myself, I come to realize that I may be one of those “older teachers” to whom I refer. No one taught me how to use computers in my classroom. I learned during inservices, workshops, and on the fly. It was not until I entered grad school that I had any formal education on technology integration. I’m told that this is addressed today in universities across the country. But a mere 8 years ago, it wasn’t even on the radar.

And so, the one piece of technology that most teachers feel absolutely confident with in the classroom tends to be power point.

Want to integrate technology? Have your kids write a report in power point, or increasingly Prezi, power point’s hip younger cousin in the cloud.

And you know what? This is totally valid. Studies say that your students learn something the best when they are forced to teach it to someone else.  But like everything else, there is a right way, and a wrong way to do presentations.

Lets look at a typical classroom where Coach Beck’s high school world geography class is doing presentations. He’s assigned each of 5 groups a country in South America, and they are presenting via Power point to their classmates. Coach Beck reminds his students that all of this information will be on the test on Friday.

Group 1, having already presented, is talking about their plans for the weekend. Group 2 is up at the board, taking turns reading the information on their slides. Coach Beck is at the back, filling out his rubric, wondering  who found the information being read to him, and if this group actually learned anything about their country. He stops the presentation to ask a question, to which the current reader replies “I don’t know. Jose did this part.” Jose also shrugs in response. Group 3 and 4 are not paying very good attention, being too nervous about getting up to present, and Group 5 is working on a computer in the back, desperately trying to finish their assignment before their turn to present. When group 2 finishes, Coach Beck stands up and asks if there are any questions for the group. Despite the fact that most of what they presented was confusing, there are none.

Is this on the test?

Is this a successful lesson? No. Did the technology get used? Sure it did. But the technology is not the objective. Learning is the objective, and learning didn't happen here today. So what could Coach Beck do to make this lesson better?

1.       
      1. Have an outline.

Before students start working, Coach Beck should give them an outline. It should let students know exactly what information they are responsible for presenting on each slide. Here’s Coach Beck’s outline.

2.    2.  Set a word limit.

No more than 5 words on each slide. This way students must be familiar with their presentation. They can use pictures and bullet points to refresh their memory, not as a teleprompter.

"I don't know Ms. Jose did that part."

3.     3. Use the outline as notes.

Have other students fill in the outline as each group presents. They will have to pay attention to each presentation, you can use the outline as an exit ticket, and students will have a ready made set of notes for that pesky exam on Friday.

4.     4.  Require constructive criticism.

Teach students the PQP model of constructive criticism. Praise, question, polish. Students express one or more things that the group did well. They ask a question about the material presented. This gets them thinking about what the subject matter of the presentation, and allows the group to clarify anything that was not presented clearly. And then they point out something that the group could do better next time.  Cold call a few students to read their comments aloud after each group. Here’s a worksheet to use for this purpose.  Students are more likely to ask questions if you require them to write down a question for each group.

This is not the only way to have successful presentations. But this will give you a framework and a place to start. Steal it, use it, modifiy it. And leave me a comment telling me how it went.

Happy teaching everyone.