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good presentation can cause transformation and group development, immediately and during the future. As the presenter, you are responsible for the way people interact with each other. This interaction helps them learn from each other and grow. You need to get to know your learners in order to teach them well. When you can get your learners to trust you, you’ve overcome a huge obstacle that benefits each of you. With trust come respect, competence, personal regard, and integrity. Mediation is also the job of the presenter by setting standards and demonstrating.
It’s not so much what happens during the presentation, which is very important, but it’s what happens after the presentation that is also important to the learner. It is now known that it is through collaborative efforts that change in teachers is made. The old way was to improve the individual teacher.
There are four functions that a presenter should perform – presenting, coaching, facilitating, and consulting. The first one, presenting, comes in many forms including lecturing, cooperative learning, and study group to name a few. Presenting is teaching.
The second one is coaching. Coaching includes motivation, personal growth, mentoring, parenting, anxiety and depression, childbirth to name a few. Coaching means helping another person make the right decision.
The third is facilitating. The facilitator helps get the work done by helping with planning and problem solving but remains neutral. Facilitators are servants and make a group’s work easier.
The fourth function is consulting. The consultant brings expertise to the group sometimes before presenting.
A macromap can give the presenter the feel of the large picture so the boundaries are known. If you don’t know the boundaries of your destination, it’s harder to spread out and learn the territory. Presenters use these maps to speak to four audiences. The four audiences that the presenter speaks to are the professors who want to know “what”, the friends who say “so what”, the inventors who say “what if”, and the scientists who say “why”.
The professors want handouts with data and an agenda and lecture seating. The friends would like a circle seating arrangement that denotes interaction and they would like nametags. The inventors enjoy colorful charts and synectic exercises. And the scientists like organized agendas with handouts that have space for questions.
A good presenter will be able to speak to each of the audiences during the opening. Most presenters do best with audiences that are more like themselves.
There are four basic levels of learning: Identity, Beliefs and values, Capabilities, and Behaviors. Identity is about who we are. Beliefs and values are about what our ideas that we think are true and our internal guidelines of good and bad. Capabilities are what guide our behaviors. And behaviors are how we act in certain situations by keeping our minds open and listening better.
Empower your audience by being the driver and not the passenger. You have to know that you can make a difference and produce results. And they also let the learners take responsibility for themselves in many ways as far as where to sit and their choice of their partner. These teachers are more successful, flexible, and produce students who learn more.
When presenting, do not focus on what you want the learner to do but rather on what you know the learner will benefit from during the activity. “The biggest item that separates mediocre presenters from world class ones is the ability to connect with an audience in an honest and exciting way (Reynolds).
A presentation is like a gift. If done correctly, a presentation can bring an audience and a presenter closer together. But “the art of conducting a presentation is a skill, not a gift” (Life Science Leader). An audience likes to believe that a presentation has been selected especially for them. For the presenter to do this, they need to know their audience! Customize the presentation! The topics to customize are: the time, the place, the circumstances, and yourself. Some suspense is good to start out talking about saying that you will share it later. Choose nice handouts and dress a bit more formally than your audience.
Make what you are presenting useful. A useful and personal gift of a presentation bonds a presenter and an audience. Remember KISS – Keep It Straight and Simple (Sieber).
There are three phases of change – endings, neutral zones, and new beginnings. It’s important to know what stage an organization is in so you know where to start and what to focus on.
Endings can be compared to dying. Some may feel it’s the ending of themselves, but they also may know that the ending brings forth a; new beginning. “The trick to endings is to let go” (Garmston). Put yourself in their shoes and focus on what led to the change instead of on the solutions.
The neutral zone – take a time out and think and get ideas. Then get the audience to think of ideas. Each person’s sense of interdependence should be strengthened during this time.
Beginnings – Do not “demean the old way of doing things” (Garmston). Encourage them to look ahead so to see what it will be like when the change takes place.
Consult before you present and your presentation will go well. Speaking with a number of people, to whom you will be presenting and getting their ideas and data, will add to your presentation. Have an agenda to follow as well as a list of names to refer back to during your conversations so you can make sure everyone is having input.
Have a standard set of design questions to work from. Some examples are: Do the attendees come to this with experience? Are we meeting to solve a problem? Is the group excited and interested in this meeting? Will there be follow up support for the outcome?
Logistics – Be sure you know where the place is that you will be presenting from and how long you have to present.
There are three hats for professional developers to wear: coach, consultant, and facilitator
Chapter Two
Develop a designer’s mind – when thinking about design, there are four questions to consider that basically tell you to know what you want your audience to learn, pay attention to see if they are learning from your presentation, and how will I go about making sure they learn.
And then there are three phases of learning – activate and engage, explore and discover, and organize and integrate. The first phase, activate and engage, allows you to learn the hopes and fears of the participants by having them bring them into their “working memory” (Garmston). The second phase, explore and discover, which means that now new information can be brought in and compared to the old so new ways can be looked at that fit. The third phase, organize and integrate, is where the learners buckle down and work to organize what they’ve learned.
Prepare the room –There are a few points to consider like the size of the room, the seating, the refreshments, name tags, and a possible greeter. Music sets the tone with softer music for the morning and livelier as the day goes on.
Technical arrangements – an easel can give the name of the presentation. You can use props to “warm the stage” (Garmston). Make sure you are standing where the majority of the audience can see you. Look at the audience and smile. Stand still for the first few minutes so the audience can check you out. “Generally stay off to the side but MOVE, MOVE, MOVE! (Gallian).
Make sure to “speak confidently, sound interesting, look confident, and engage with the audience” (Improving Your Presentation Delivery Skills).
Each style of room arrangement has a certain feel. Here are the basics: Theatre is for a lecture of more than 50 people; Chevron is classroom style for groups of 30 – 50; Herringbone is for 30 – 150 and is good for small group discussions; U-shaped for 5 – 25; and Rounds for 30 -150.
There are seven purposes of content:
1. Inform – present content
2. Communicate values – present from a source other than you
3. Provide theory – know how to present the information
4. Establish credibility – say things that relate you to the group
5. Prime the learning pump – tell a story that relates to the topic of your talk
6. Focus attention – instruct audience what to pay attention to
7. Set a course for action – influence participants to know what they need to do after presentation
Participants must be given time to understand the information being given them.
There are eight containers to choose from according to Garmston (page 56). Knowing your audience helps you with which one to choose. Having your ideas from your talk stated in your opening helps listeners remember better.
Time sequence – use exact order of action
Question and answer – you ask and then answer
Three ideas – start talk with ideas
Startling statement, reasons, and solutions – gets audience’s attention
Compare-Contrast – use key idea
Topical grouping – not the best choice but kind of like an outline
Cause and Effect – “describes how one action leads to another” (Garmston)
Problem-Solution – none step process
And there is a ninth added in – The 2 minute speech
Design Effective Follow-up
“Only 20% of learning will occur inside the room and 80% comes from practice outside the seminar setting” (Garmston).
"10 Powerpoint Tips for Preparing a Professional Presentation." Cool Websites, Software and Internet Tips. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. <http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-tips-for-preparing-a-professional-presentation>.
"Garr Reynolds/Presentations." Garr Reynolds Official Site. GarrReynolds.com, 2005. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. <http://www.garrreynolds.com/Presentation/delivery.html>.
"Improving Your Presentation Delivery Skills." Presentation-skills.biz. 2003-2011. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. <http://www.presentation-skills.biz/>.
Joseph A. Gallian, How to give a good talk, Math Horizons, April (1998), 29-30.
"Life Science Leader." Life Science Leader - Home. Jameson Publishing, Inc., 6 Oct. 2011. Web. 11 Oct. 2011. <http://www.lifescienceleader.com/index.php?option=com_content>.
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