Facilitating Oral Presentations
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Teaching Challenge: Facilitating oral presentations
Below is a list of challenges and concerns that typically come up when students are presenting during class periods. Which ones have you encountered? Which were you able to navigate comfortably on the spot, and which would you like additional resources or strategies for in your teaching toolkit?
- If you have a technique or information regarding a particular situation, please respond. (Share strategies that you tried and results -- what worked well, what didn’t; what you might try next time).
- Others can add alternative techniques or approaches, or use the Discussion tool to raise questions or suggest revisions.
- If you have a question or classroom challenge, add it to the bottom of the list.
Note:
- Anyone at WSU can contribute to this page, and anyone world wide can read this page, as with any WSU wiki page.
- Resources and information on other aspects of teaching can be found in the WSU wiki at Teaching Resources or Teaching Toolkit Series
Student presenter doesn’t show up, or presenter isn’t ready
There is one big problem with an otherwise acceptable presentation (ex: speaker too quiet, visuals are crowded, etc.)
Presenter starts off poorly – let him/her continue or give feedback and a chance to correct or start over?
- Let the presenter collect themselves
- offer a chance to start over
Technology problems delay a tight schedule
A presentation is very weak, and the instructor must decide how to respond to presenter and/or to inform audience to prevent others from replicating the problem later
Peers give inappropriate or useless feedback to presenter -- either too harsh or too lenient, not constructive
How to get useful peer feedback and what to do with it
Everything goes on too long and class continues to run over with no closure, no takeaway points for the students
Student presentations going over time
There is unexpectedly a lot of empty time
Questions and answers get sidetracked
Giving oral feedback on the spot – when and how: after each presentation? After several? At end of lesson? How to avoid focusing on flaws? How to avoid being redundant? How to give feedback so that other students know what to replicate and not replicate? Oral vs written feedback.
How does the instructor multi-task – be attentive to presentation, write some kind of useful written feedback, plan oral feedback, monitor and manage time, trouble-shoot, facilitate audience and peer response?
Students / audience arrive late
Grading Oral Presentations