How to Prepare and Be Prepared for a Presentation

Mini-course Introduction

While presenting a topic and explaining it clearly is a common task given at school, college or university, students are not usually trained on how to do it. Likewise, students may not be ready to perform in front of a large audience. All of these may have a negative impact on the student’s attitude towards this type of assignment, which may also be reflected in their performance.

How can this mini course help teachers?

The aim of this mini-course is to give teachers tools to guide their students through the presentation process, covering the different elements that should be in any effective presentation and useful techniques to share with their students. Thus, their students will know how to prepare and be prepared for in-class presentations.

How does this course work?

The learner will cover five units which will give them a general overview of the structure of an effective presentation as well as advice on the best way to prepare your own and to overcome typical emotional difficulties when presenting. Moreover, each unit of the mini-course will elaborate on the main elements that characterize each part of a presentation by describing them, providing examples and giving useful tips to approach them. At the end of each unit there will be different activities to relate the material presented to actual cases and to assess the knowledge obtained. This mini-course consists of four units which can be finished in approximately eight to ten hours.

Needs Assessment

The fact that in the past few years, many students started to request to make in-class presentations optional and to see them as discriminatory, mainly for students with anxiety, shows that students do not feel properly prepared for this assignment. However, in-class presentations are still a requirement with which some students struggle. Hence, high-school teachers need to provide their students with the tools to become more confident public speakers and to acquire the necessary cognitive and affective skills for in-class presentations.

What Will Learners Be Able to Do After Taking This Mini-course?

After completing this mini-course, learners will:

Be aware of the organization and main elements that must be present in each part of a presentation.
Manage techniques to get the audience’s attention and to reduce nervousness while presenting.

Introduce themselves to the audience and present the topic in an organized way.
Guide an audience through the main part of a presentation by clearly sequencing the content.
End a presentation by including a clearly organized conclusion.
Follow strategies to present their conclusions effectively.
Be ready to anticipate the audience’s questions during and after the presentation, and to deal with them following different strategies.

Course Units

This mini-course includes the following units. Click the title of a unit to go to its page.

UNIT 1: PRESENTATION OVERVIEW

In this unit the learner will:

Learn about the importance of in-class presentations today.
Be introduced to the structure of a presentation: introduction, main part, and conclusion.
Apply techniques to engage the audience
Apply techniques to deal with nervousness.

UNIT 2: INTRODUCTION

In this unit the learner will:

Learn how to present the topic and the structure of the presentation in an organized way.
Be familiar with the checklist acronym “WISE OWL^[1]”.

UNIT 3: MAIN PART

In this unit the learner will:

Be able to properly guide an audience through a presentation with signposting cues.
Learn how to create better visuals.
Be familiar with the checklist acronym “BEST SHOT^[1]”.

UNIT 4: CONCLUSION

In this unit the learner will:

End a presentation according to formal standards.
Apply strategies to present the main points of the conclusion effectively.
Anticipate the audience’s questions and deal with them during and after the presentation.
Consider the need to reform questions.