Polishing my presentations
As a new instructor I have been working on polishing my presentations so that I will appear more professional in my students eyes. They know I am a new at this. Do you have any specific tips to help me improve my 'polish'
Anita,
Thank you for sharing your wisdom and expertise with us. You make a number of very good points that I know will be of help to instructors looking to "polish" their delivery style. Your last sentence says it all for us. It is an ongoing process for the duration of our career.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
William,
One oreff the best ways beyond those you are are already working on is to video your presentations. This way you can review the video for areas that you want to improve and then incorporate those improvements into your future lectures. By being aware of wanting to refine your delivery you will through experience and these efforts get better with the more time you spend in front of the class.
Gary
Gary Meers, Ed.D.
I have been teaching several years and one of the things I have learned from experience is "if they know you are new, beware because they will use that to their advantage". Even today I still try to come up with different ways to "polish" my presentations. Sometimes it is very hard to keep students undivided attention so you have to be very creative, which I am not. I guess what I am saying is, never stop "polishing" up your presentations but always let them know you are in control of the classroom. You also have to "mix-it-up" and try different ways to present the information to try to keep their attention. Different students learn different ways so you have to use different styles to make sure the entire class is understanding the information. There are several different things you can do to "mix-it-up", like, working in groups, fun games (my favorite is Jeopardy and students really like it)power points,etc. In my Anatomy/Physiology class I have brought poster board, divided them in groups, and had them draw whatever system we were learning about.
Polishing up presentations is a continuous job. We always have to come up with ways to keep students involved, interested,etc, all the while taking into consideration the different learning styles of the students.
An instructors job is never done!!!!
