Articles: Preparation - 1 views
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what are the most important parts of your topic for the audience to take away from your,
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kliston on 17 May 15With the presentations I am currently preparing I have tended to give too much information which has caused the message to get lost. Reading this reminds me that I need to focus on the one or two key objectives I desire the participants to walk away. Less is more.
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Simple can be hard for the presenter, but it will be appreciated by the audience.
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This statement reminds of when we ask students to synthesize their learning. We are asking them to pair down what they have learned into a short statement. I need to do the same thing with my presentations. What is the key idea I want people to walk away with.
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And it is not enough to simply have an “agenda” or “road map” slide in the beginning that illustrates the organization of your talk. If you do not actually have a solid road of logic and structure, then an outline slide will be of no use.
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Ugh. I totally do this. I have an agenda slide at the beginning of each of my presentations but sometimes we get off course. I know as a participant that would really bother me. I am going to stop doing my typical agenda slide and try to find a more effective way showcase the structure of the day.
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I agree. I do this as well, and I think it is sometimes reinforced by different educational theories. Right now my school is working with the Fisher-Frey Gradual Release of Responsibility Model. One of the major components is "Purpose Statements." All of our lesson must have these and they must guide the lesson. In and of itself - that's great. However, I think we use that as a crutch sometimes to be the structure rather than help guide the structure. -- Wendy -
Agree with these things totally...as chronic bullet list maker though, this is hard to start to do and keep doing!
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“so what?!” or “your point being…?”
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This is a great reminder of what we need to continually ask ourselves. I feel like I should print this out and tape it to my wall.
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I say this to my student whenever they write thesis statements, so it makes sense that I need to say it to myself as well.
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Good stories have interesting, clear beginnings, provocative, engaging content in the middle, and a clear, logical conclusion.
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When I tell a story I feel like I need to keep the three components of a good story in mind. I tend to try to tell the story quickly so I leave out parts which in turn confuses the audience.
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Remember, even if you’ve been asked to share information, rarely is the mere transfer of information a satisfactory objective from the point of view of the audience.
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I'm think about this when I create web videos for flipping my instruction over literary theory with AP English seniors. Yes, I have information I need to transmit to them, but what is the essential idea(s) I need them to know to be able to do Marxist or Psychoanalytic literary theory.
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What time of the day? If there are other presenters, what is the order (always volunteer to go first or last, by the way). What day of the week? All of this matters.
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This is something of which I also have to be more cognizant. Realistically, my students aren't going to be listening to my lectures at home at 4 p.m. They are going to pull up my presentation at 11 p.m. (or even more realistically 1 a.m.) after 8 hours of being talked at at school, 2-4 hours of being talked at at practice or work, and another 1-2 hours of reading and (hopefully) thinking about other course's homework. They are going to be fried.
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Interesting point, Wendy. That might change the calculus for how you design your presentations.
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A data dump also occurs when data and information do not seem to build on the information that came earlier in the presentation.
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Do not fall into the trap of thinking that in order for your audience to understand anything, you must tell them everything.
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This is my biggest problem, but also my biggest fear -- they won't get enough content to understand how to apply the idea(s) in class the next day.
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I struggle with this also, Wendy! Especially in education, it seems like we feel the need to "prove" our premise with data and studies. -
What a relief to read this! It's like permission to do what I intuitively wanted to believe as truth, but couldn't unless/until someone else told me it's ok...
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the core idea for every successful play he produced could be written as a simple sentence on the back of a business card. Try it. Can you crystallize the essence of your presentation content and write it on the back of a business card?
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I can see this being a benefit to helping students learn literary theory. The theory they felt the most comfortable with at the end of the year was New Criticism, which has a formulaic "tag-line" - form + function = meaning.
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McKee says rhetoric is problematic because while we are making our case others are arguing with us in their heads using their own statistics and sources. Even if you do persuade through argument, says McKee, this is not good enough because “people are not inspired to act on reason alone.” The key, then, is to aim to unite an idea with an emotion, which is best done through story.
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Story is about an imbalance and opposing forces or a problem that must be worked out.
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This really resonants and works well with how I plan to use my (hopefully) better presentation skills. If I can present literary theory as a "problem that must be worked out," then I can hopefully interest students in it more.
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Yes! It's a great formula, almost like a trick you can pull out of your bag, that ensures you'll get a result you want. Conflict sells - just look at the news.
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Identify the problem. (This could be a problem, for example, that your product solves.) Identify causes of the problem. (Give actual examples of the conflict surrounding the problem.) Show how and why you solved the problem. (This is where you provide resolution to the conflict.)
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t’s quite simple: a PowerPoint presentation should have ten slides, last no more than twenty minutes, and contain no font smaller than thirty points.
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Wow! I will say - it has to totally depend on what is asked of you. I was asked to fill 90 minutes. I broke up the presentation into 4 mini ones, with interactive, kinetic, visual, audio, etc. connection opportunities...human to human.
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Problem Your solution Business model Underlying magic/technology Marketing and sales Competition Team Projections and milestones Status and timeline Summary and call to action
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I wonder if there's a corollary for education? I'm thinking about my own needs here, but does this make sense: Problem - Issue in literature that needs analyzed Solution - specific literary theory Business model - structure of theory? Tech - tenets of theory? Marketing/sales - why they should use it? Competition - different branches of theory Team - historical background of theory Milestones - good theorists do "blank" Timeline - restated steps of theory? Summary - ?
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What is the real purpose of your talk? Why is it that you were asked to speak? What does the audience expect?
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These seem to me to be the most important take aways for me today. Time thinking and brainstorming about the true purpose of the presentation--without technology! I think that we have been conditioned recently to turn to the computer first for information and then figure out what to do with it.
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"Purpose" is a very important and nuanced term. You many times have several purposes, including overt ones (inform your audience of x, y, z) and covert ones (convince them to dot his job they don't want to do, try to cut down on the number of rumors flying around)
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If your audience could remember only three things about your presentation,what would you want it to be? (1)__________ (2)__________ (3)__________
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These three things that you want them to remember can be founded at the same time as the initial preparation that happens without technology. If it is important to be remembered, what will make the audience make a connection to it and actuallyremember it.
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Yes, absolutely. And, they should be ingrained (engrained?) in your memory, so that if (in the middle of your presentation) you aren't meeting those items, you can shift on the fly.
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10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint
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I absolutely love this way of thinking! easy to remember and makes great sense. This is something that I will be able to share with other staff members that I work with that is simple and valuable at the same time to help them improve. 10 slides, 20 Minutes, 30 point font!
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I agree! This is an easy way to remember and share with others the rules of making a clear and engaging presentation.
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Visuals should be big, bold, clear, and easy to see. Allow graphic elements to fill the frame and bleed off the edges. Use visuals in an active way, not a decorative one. Aim to carefully trim back the details. Make your presentation—visuals and narration—participatory.
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These are great to work from, very succinct and simple to do. Another thing that will be great for me to share with others that is simple and easy to do, while continually improving things along the way
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#4! Efficiency. Yes. Otherwise we can blather away without purpose. The 'Curse of Knowledge'.
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50-minute presentation
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Even though this is not Reynolds' main thought here, I appreciate the fact that he mentions that a part of preparation is knowing how much time is available to communicate with the audience. To avoid the information attack, it is wise to limit the amount of information being shared in a manageable amount in the time alloted.
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How much background information about your topic
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Just like with any teaching, I have found that audiences vary greatly in their prior knowledge. It is a challenge to share background information without boring those who already know it.
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really helps solidify and simplify my message in my own head
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I really like this idea of planning on a white board or on paper. Like Reynolds, I can see that I would feel freer to think outside the box since it is "just" a planning step.
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you also arouse your listener’s emotion and energy
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In the professional development that I am asked to lead, teachers need to hear the stories of students. I can see that without the stories to back up the information, I will not be able to tap into the energy and emotions of the audience members.
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Karen, this is so important! The hardest part for me as a professional development person is to develop those stories that resonate. Too many times I've seen myself and my colleagues fail here.
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down-to-earth language that was conversational yet passionate
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This is so descriptive of the language to which an audience can relate: conversational yet passionate. When speakers are "pie in the sky" rather than down to earth, the audience thinks, "They don't understand what I do every day." I've thought this myself during a presentation!
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find out the age of the oldest person in your audience and divide it by two. That’s your optimal font size.
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What a great idea. Average age divided by two equals the minimum font size allowed. As I think this through, I find that as a visual learner, I DO tune out the speaker if they have all their information on the slides.
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if your presentation is not based on solid content, you can not succeed.
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This is why I fear not having all my notes on my slides! I want to express so much information so that I am deemed the credible expert. I fear I might get caught up and freeze in mid-speech and then fumble without knowing what to say. Alas, I just reminded myself that I simply need to chunk down the ingo - more slides, each with less info rather than stuffing all the info into one slide.
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without making the effort to make the information or data applicable to the members of the audience.
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Ahhh! I'm called out. The example I sent in for this class of my presentation is demonstrative of this point.
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Do not fall into the trap of thinking that in order for your audience to understand anything, you must tell them everything.
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Do not fall into the trap of thinking that in order for your audience to understand anything, you must tell them everything.
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thing
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not fall into the trap of thinking that in order for your audience to understand anything, you must tell them everything.
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not fall into the trap of thinking that in order for your audience to understand anything, you must tell them everything.
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I have seen pretty good (though not great) presentations that had very average delivery and average graphics, but were relatively effective because the speaker told relevant stories in a clear, concise manner to support his points.
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This reminds me of the idea behind - "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel." ― Maya Angelou ....Stories evoke FEELings, that's why we love them so much; we resonate, we see ourselves in the storyline, connecting to it. The point here that we illustrate the points we're making through story means the story provides not only the support of our point, it also is the PROOF!
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We fear what we do not know. If we know our material well and have rehearsed the flow, know what slide is next in the deck, and have anticipated questions, then we have eliminated much (but not all) of the unknown
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Great point. In addition, confidence is the natural byproduct, natural consequence of doing the act, of doing, of doing what you fear. We tend to think it's the other way around - that we must first find/create/elicit confidence within us and THEN do the doing. Nope.
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“Forget PowerPoint and statistics, to involve people at the deepest level you need to tell stories.”
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This is a cure and remedy for the problem of audience - of having an audience that you anticipate to be difficult, or having an audience that you don't know anything about, don't know their background of knowledge of your topic, if any (or an audience of all mixed awareness). The remedy, as I have found, is to strive for communicating to human universals. If I can propose any point I'm making as having a root anchored to a purposeful and meaningful WHY, then I'll elicit feelings that will hook the audience, and this strong, empathic connection may even lead to their forgiveness of me if I screw up in content, or it may lead to their overlooking something I lack technically.
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you want to position the problems in the foreground and then show how you’ve overcome them,” says McKee. If you tell the story of how you struggled with antagonists, the audience is engaged with you and your material.
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Also, it's like more proof - if we can illustrate how this idea we're presenting is a natural part of the resiliency process, people will buy in. We're always looking for solutions that work, and we want to hear them first hand.
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you should not fight your natural inclination to frame experiences into a story; instead, embrace this and tell the story of your experience of the topic to your audience.
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I fight my natural inclination often, as if my meager story, my own personal experience, isn't worthy enough. Yuck. Truth is, I deal with very difficult subject matter in my talks, and people want a way out of these predicaments I address. I'm grateful to Garr and Robert McKee for, in a sense, making me feel like I can give myself permission to trust my own journey and share it like a beacon of inspiration and hope.
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The best kamishibai presenters did not read the story, but instead kept their eyes on the audience a
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Eye contact. Bam. So simple! I try to engage in every person's eyes. I know that when I'm at a concert or a lecture, whatever, when the speaker/artist looks in my eyes amongst all eyes in the group...I'm spellbound. I feel special. I'll recall that experience, that moment, that person with warm regard and impactful, resonant significance.
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in a voice that was human, not formal.
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HUMAN voice, not formal. This is relieving to hear. Even when it's a formal presentation, I can be human first. I need this.
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powerful man simply shrugged his shoulders and said “...ah, doesn’t matter. My point is...” He moved forward and captivated the audience with his stories of the firm’s past failures and recent successes
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I need to hear these real life stories of how people gracefully handle presentation glitches.
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(1) He knew his material inside and out, and he knew what he wanted to say.
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He did not let technical glitches get in his way. When they occurred, he moved forward without missing a beat, never losing his engagement with the audience. (4) He used real, sometimes humorous, anecdotes to illustrate his points, and all his stories were supremely poignant and relevant, supporting his core message.
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it was, above all, authentic
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If you do not believe it, do not know it to be true, how can you connect and convince others with your words in story form?
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a normal human being cannot comprehend more than ten concepts in a meeting
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I love these sort of anecdotal, formula claims. Helps cement the concept with clarity.
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first, that they don’t know their material well enough; second, they think that more text is more convincing. Total bozosity.
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Force yourself to use no font smaller than thirty points.
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it requires you to find the most salient points and to know how to explain them well
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