Presentations: How Many Have I Ever Used?

I have speak extremely honestly. Presentations aren’t really my thing. Never have been. That isn’t to say that they aren’t useful, or needed. I attempt to make my classroom as much as about the students as possible. That means I don’t spend much time lecturing. As I mentioned in a previous post about reflection, I want to ensure I am teaching my students the skills needed to grow as productive citizens while not talking at them.

After reading Jeff’s posts about lecturing and teaching students to present, I find myself thinking more and more about lecturing and teaching students how to present properly. I have to be honest, and state it all feels super overwhelming which doesn’t help my already feeling stressed state. It’s been a long week, and I do know it is only Tuesday.

With all that background being said, I don’t have many presentations to even look at. I found one that I did for our brief open house at the beginning of the year. Parents follow the student’s schedule and are in my room for no more than 10 minutes before moving on to the next class.

On the 3rd slide, I know that I have way too many words posted. I require my students to limit theirs to 5-7 words per slide. They do a final presentation in May that they aren’t allowed to have any words on their slides. Harsh! I know. Also, there are no visuals in my presentation. I am sure you guess about how much time I spent on this.

After watching this video, I realized that I had much more to do than just add visuals to my slides. I just honestly don’t know where to start with being better at design and presenting.

David JP Phillips mentions five key points.

1. One message per slide
2. Limit Text add an image
3. Most important part should be the biggest
4. Contrast the text while presenting allows views to focus on one point at at time. Also, the background should be dark so that the eyes are relax and the person is the center of attention.
5. Audience should just see the objects. There shouldn’t be any counting. Six is the magically number.

The point that hit home for me was when he mentions that the person is the presentation and the other is the visual aid. He goes on to surprise me even further with the comment that the amount of slides isn’t the problem, but the amount of objects per slide is the problem.