UNIT 3

CLASS ROOM PRESENTAION

Presentation skills are extremely useful both in and outside the classroom. After completing
a project, a presentation is a channel for students to share with others what they have
learned. It is also a chance to challenge and expand on their understanding of the topic by
having others ask questions.

Lecture Method
Lectures are instructor-centred forms of instruction given to a whole class. Lectures come in
many different forms, some more effective than others. The least effective form of lecture
involves a teacher reading from notes or the text without differentiating for student needs.
This makes learning a passive activity and students may quickly lose interest.

Socratic Seminar
In a whole group discussion, the instructor and the students share the focus of the lesson.
Typically a teacher presents information through questions and answers, trying to ensure that
all students are involved in learning. Keeping all students on task, however, may be difficult
with large class sizes. Teachers should be aware that using an instructional strategy of whole-
class discussions may result in passive engagement for some students who may not
participate.

The Socratic seminar is where an instructor asks open-ended questions allowing students to
respond and build on each others thinking.

Jigsaws and Small Groups

There are other forms of small group discussion. The most basic example is when the teacher
breaks the class up into small groups and provides them with talking points that they must
discuss. The teacher then walks around the room, checking on the information being shared
and ensuring participation by all within the group. The teacher may ask students questions
to ensure that everyone's voice is heard.

Role Play or Debate

Roleplay is an active instructional strategy that has students take on different roles in a
specific context as they explore and learn about the topic at hand. In many ways, role-play is
similar to improvisation where each student is confident enough to offer an interpretation of a
character or an idea without the benefit of a script.

Software Program(s)
Teachers can use a variety of educational software on different platforms to deliver digital
content for student learning. The software might be installed as an application or a program
that students access on the internet. Different software programs are selected by the teacher
for their content (Newsela) or for the features that allow students to engage (Quizlet) with the
material.

Presentation Through Multimedia

Multimedia methods of presentation are passive methods of delivering content and include
slideshows (Powerpoint) or movies. When creating presentations, teachers should be aware
of the need to keep notes concise while including interesting and relevant images. If done
well, a presentation is a kind of lecture that can be interesting and effective for student
learning.

Teachers may want to follow a 10/20/30 rule which means there are no more than 10 slides,
the presentation is under 20 minutes, and the font is no smaller than 30 points. Presenters
need to be aware that too many words on a slide can be confusing to some students or that
reading every word on the slide aloud can be boring for an audience that can already read the
material.

Independent Reading and Work

Some topics lend themselves well to individual classroom reading time. For example, if
students are studying a short story, a teacher might have them read in class and then stop
them after a certain time to ask questions and check for understanding. However, it is
important that the teacher is aware of student reading levels to make sure that students do not
fall behind. Different leveled texts on the same content may be necessary.

Flipped Classroom
Student use of all manner of digital devices (smartphones, laptops, i-Pads, Kindles) that allow
access to content brought the beginning of the Flipped Classroom. More than a switch of
homework to classwork, this relatively new instructional strategy is where the teacher moves
the more passive elements of learning such as watching a powerpoint or reading a chapter,
etc.as an activity outside of the classroom, usually the day or night before. This design of the
flipped classroom is where valuable class time is available for more active forms of learning.

In flipped classrooms, one goal would be to guide students to make decisions on how to learn
better on their own rather than having the teacher deliver information directly.

Student Presentation
The instructional strategy of using student presentations as a way to present content to the
class as a whole can be a fun and engaging method of instruction. For example, teachers can
divide up a chapter into topics and have the students "teach" the class by presenting their
"expert" analysis. This is similar to the Jigsaw strategy used in small group work.
Individual Conferencing

When a teacher is conferencing with a student or a small group of students, they are working
on skills that need to be reinforced or skills that will provide enrichment. There are many
benefits to conferencing with students:

1. Conferences provide individualized instruction for each student.

2. Conferences can provide insight into what the student is doing while reading and writing.

3. Conferences can help the teacher investigate student knowledge.

4. Conferencing can help assess the student.

5. Conferencing can provide reinforcement and/or enrichment of skills

6. Conferencing can help students improve their reading level.

What Does Conferencing Look Like?

Conferencing can be organized in many ways. As mentioned before, conferencing can occur
with one student, pairs of students, or groups of students. This is dependent on what skills are
needed and what lessons will be taught during the conferences.

1. Compliment the writer: Try to make compliments focused around the teaching point of
the day’s lesson.

2. State the Teaching Point: Make this teaching point specific to what you notice with the
students’ reading and writing. Examples include: meaning, structure, detail, etc…

3. Provide a Metaphor: Focus the students by bringing the text back to something
meaningful in their life.

4. Study a Mentor Text: Show examples of strategies.

5. Teach the Strategy: Show students how strategies can be applied in their reading or
writing.

6. Practice: Ensure comprehension of the strategy.

7. Keep Notes: Record the teaching point and goals, and return to it again.
What Should Be taught in a Conference?

There are many things that can be taught during conferencing. Many suggestions are in the
links and books below, but I would like to remind you that you are teaching the reader and the
writer, not the reading and the writing. In other words, you are teaching the students skills that
can be applied to multiple areas in reading and writing. These are skills that can be transferred
to different books and different types of writing.

Audience analysis
Audience analysis refers to researching the interests, preferences, demographic, location, and
other aspects of a group.

While your own audience is a great place to start with audience analysis, looking at your
competitor’s audience and comparing it to your own can help you gain insights into how to
stay ahead of the competition.

The detailed audience analysis includes studying the following main points:

1. What are the audience interested in?

2. What does the audience want?
3. What does the audience already know and needs to know
4. What are their expectation from this presentation?
5. How will the audience benefit from this presentation?
6. What and how presenter wants to convey the audience

Locate an audience
One of the simplest insights to gain about an audience is location. You can identify where
people are discussing a brand, product, or any other topic. You can also filter other analysis
results by location to better understand an audience in a specific place.
Understand key demographics
Is the audience mostly male or female? What is the age breakdown for the audience? These
questions help you gain some basic knowledge about the audience you are analysing.
Find new audiences
Understanding your existing audience is the first step to identifying opportunities to expand
your audience. Speaker should know the characteristics of the audience.

Identify influencers
Who influences your audience? Who influences your potential new audiences? Identifying
influencers within an audience can help you determine your strategy for engaging that
audience.
Is there an opportunity for paying the influencer to promote your brand? Are there specific
celebrities that would resonate with your audience in an ad campaign?

Having the answers to these questions will help you boost the performance of your
campaigns by knowing who to partner with and how to connect with your audience.

Retention of Audience Interest

Keeping audience attention is more important and more difficult than grabbing audience
attention. A one-way presentation is one of the worst possible ways of transferring
information from person to person. It requires discipline and effort to simply sit and listen
passively to someone speak for any length of time. Make it easier for your audience by
following these seven guidelines:

1. Be mindful of the 10-minute rule.

It is a well-known fact that attention wanes after about 10 minutes. However, most presenters
seem to forget this and continue to drone on for an hour or more; they move from mind-
numbing slide to slide, unaware of the painful effect on the audience. When you create your
presentation, plan to have a strategic /micro change every 10 minutes. A change can be as
simple as asking a good question that can stimulate some audience interaction. It can be
showing a pertinent video clip, telling a relevant story or getting the audience to do
something, such as analyzing a diagram.

2. Use images.
When we hear a piece of information, three days later we'll remember only 10 percent of it;
but if we add a picture, we'll remember 65 percent. The message is loud and clear: Text-
based slides are ineffective in maintaining attention and aiding memory. Spice up your
presentations with images.

3. Represent bullets in graphical form.

Show some of the bullets on your slides in an appealing, visual way.

• Use a period (full stop) after every bullet point that is a sentence (as these bullets do).

• Use all sentences or all fragments, not a mixture.

• Use no punctuation after bullets that are not sentences

4. Honor the audience.

Nothing perks up an audience more than switching the limelight from you to them. A simple
statement such as: "I know there is a great deal of talent in this room. I encourage you to
bring that talent to bear and share your thoughts on the topic with the rest of the group."
5. Don't use the slides as your speaking notes.
Don’t put so much material on slides as they are speaking notes. People continue to display
slides that are dense with text and expect the audience to simultaneously read the slides and
listen to them speak. The sensory combination of slides that are filled with text and a speaker
who is talking is just a bad combination." Don't do this.

6.Avoid the graveyard shift.

If you can, avoid presenting right after lunch. The optimal time for maximum attention are
the hours between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m. Presentation will not be effective after lunch.

Audience Participation

An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art,

literature (in which they are called "readers"), theatre, music (in which they are called
"listeners"), video games (in which they are called "players"), or academics in any medium.
Audience members participate in different ways in different kinds of art; some events invite
overt audience participation and others allowing only modest clapping and criticism and
reception.

INVOLVING THE AUDIENCE

Nervous speakers will do anything to avoid interacting directly with an audience. Some
look over people’s heads or read from notes or slides. Others treat presentations like a
performance, with the audience as mere spectators.

1. CHOOSE YOUR TECHNIQUE.

Audience participation encompasses a broad range of activities–from a simple show of

hands, to requests for brief personal input, to role playing and games, to small group
exercises.

2. PLAN AHEAD.

Before asking for audience participation, think about the types of responses you might get.
You want audience input to be meaningful and to help you make your point.

Be clear about your purpose and consider how audience participation will help build your
case.

4. ALLOW TIME FOR RESPONSE.

Be clear about whether your question is rhetorical or real. Audiences are often unsure, so it
helps to use phrases like “Who here” or “Who in this room” to elicit real responses.
Even if the question is rhetorical–meaning you don’t expect a verbal response–still leave
time for participants to consider the question and how they would answer. It can be just a
brief pause, but it’s important to let them digest your point. You can signal a rhetorical
question with a simple phrase like “Think for a moment . . .”

5. ACKNOWLEDGE CONTRIBUTIONS.

Always recognize an audience member’s contribution before moving on to the next point
or participant, even if just to say “Good” or “Thank you.”