PrintPresentation Rehearsal
Soon you'll venture 'into the wild' to present your findings and recommendations to your Community Partner and perhaps some citizens or other stakeholders. This is exciting! And maybe a little scary.
One of the Program Competencies ESP seeks to emphasize is strong communication skills - both oral and written. We have many opportunities to demonstrate the written communication skills, but fewer for oral communication. You are required to present your capstone project to your Community Partner in some capacity as a deliverable for this course. Before that though, we will run through that presentation together as a Zoom rehearsal. This is an opportunity for us to think about the story of your project and how you tell that story to your Community Partner. We'll go through your slides and try to anticipate and prepare proactively for the questions they're likely to have.
How this works
- Upload your PowerPoint file to the Canvas Presentation Rehearsal assignment *before* your scheduled presentation. Shortly before the schedule presentation time begins, the instructor will enable screen sharing and hosting capabilities for you within Zoom and you'll be able to give the presentation from there.
- Give the presentation as if you're giving it to your Community Partner. This means you don't need to backfill a lot of background information for the instructor's benefit that the Community Partner would clearly know.
- Think of this as a draft that will inevitably undergo revision after our session.
Grading
- Quality (25%) - First and foremost, we'll make sure that the presentation you're about to give is factually accurate and robust. Your presentation should demonstrate this through thoroughly supported facts and figures as well as your accurate descriptions of data and honest representations of stakeholder positions.
- Engaging delivery (25%) - It's important to engage your audience and maintain their attention. This includes thoughtfully designed slides, well-positioned transitions between topics, and a dynamic oral delivery (very important!).
- Completeness (25%) - While there may be some minor details to which you must attend, the presentation as given in the rehearsal should very closely mirror your intended presentation for your in-person event.
- Design aesthetic (25%) - slide deck follows recommendations for building an effective presentation provided in the assignment.
Building an Effective Presentation
- use bulleted phrases, not complete sentences - you don't want to tempt yourself to read from your slides, they are just there to keep the conversation on task
- create a visually interesting but not distracting presentation look and feel - PowerPoint has many attractive themes from which to choose
- avoid text in bright colors like red, bright blue, or neon green - opt instead for black or dark gray or dark blue on a light background, or white or light gray on a dark background
- use images and graphics, but only as appropriate, not just as filler
- assume you'll spend 2-3 minutes per slide