The making of an “effective” presentation

In HSP3MI recently we have been looking at how the brain works. We’ve been talking about personality and where it comes from and the brain is an obvious place to start.

In order to familiarize students with some of the key components and their functions, I have put together a lengthy powerpoint. Unfortunately this powerpoint is pretty bad when it comes to presentations. So instead of changing it, I decided last year to create a critical challenge. From The Critical Thinking Consortium‘s framework for teaching critical thinking, I developed an activity based on their “Rework the Piece” template which required the students to design a “better” presentation of the brain material from the powerpoint.

Before we began, we discussed appropriate criteria for judging a presentation. After some good discussion we came up with: relevant visuals, concise content, creative visuals.

In HSP3MI recently we have been looking at how the brain works. We’ve been talking about personality and where it comes from and the brain is an obvious place to start. In order to familiarize students with some of the key components and their functions, I have put together a lengthy powerpoint. Unfortunately this powerpoint is pretty bad when it comes to presentations. So instead of changing it, I decided last year to create a critical challenge. From The Critical Thinking Consortium’s framework for teaching critical thinking, I developed an activity based on their “Rework the Piece” template which required the students to design a “better” presentation of the brain material from the powerpoint.Before we began, we discussed appropriate criteria for judging a presentation. After some good discussion we came up with: relevant visuals, concise content, creative visuals.

I had arranged to borrow a colleague’s class set of netbooks (thanks @englishschmuck!) and away we went.

I asked students to use Prezi for this task and many were already familiar. What was great to see was those who weren’t familiar being taught by those who were. I also appreciated the fact that students could create an account and be able to access the program without having to verify it with their personal email (which are blocked in our board).

Once we began, the issue of being able to work on one presentation with two people arose. After a little investigation we learned that Prezi now has a collaborative function called “meeting”. This allows multiple users to work on the same project.

After we worked out a few issues, the class completely engaged in the task. It was very interesting to see them take ownership over this mini-challenge. I’m pondering asking @kempscott‘s Futures Forum class to view each prezi and rate the one they think is the best. They have already developed a rubric and evaluated our first Facebook debate so it might be a logical next step in our collaboration together.

I will keep you posted.