It was August 2005 and I was a freshman at the University
of Montevallo. It was the first day of classes and I was a ball of nerves. In
the weeks leading up to my first college class, I wasn’t nervous about the
coursework or even living in a dormitory. I was overly excited about being a
college student and looked forward to everything about college life. My nerves
were solely because of one class: COMS
101 Foundations of Oral Communication (Introduction to Public Speaking). Just the
idea of giving a presentation in front of a room full of other students and a
professor made me sick to my stomach. Not only did I make it through COMS 101
(not without some anxiety however), I ended up choosing a career where I am
basically a public speaker every day of my life…
As an educator, creating presentations and public
speaking are very familiar territory. Although I sometimes still get a little anxious
speaking in front of a group, presenting in front of ninth graders is much less
intimidating than colleagues or peers. In our line of work, it isn’t just about
a lot of speaking; it’s about creating informative and appealing presentations
to accompany our speaking.
Chapter four of Crafting
Digital Writing: Composing Texts across Media and Genres focuses on
crafting meaningful presentations. I found the most helpful concept in the
chapter to be the suggestions or principles to make presentations that are “sticky”
and that don’t “suck”. These suggestions are imperative for educators,
especially for high school teachers, for reasons that go without needing
explanation.
According to Hicks in Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts across Media and Genres, the
“secret to effective presentations is an intentional focus on craft” (Hicks,
2013, p. 61). Both students and educators alike should concentrate on the core
principles of contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity when constructing a
presentation (Hicks, 2013, p. 61). Although some of the books that Hicks refers to were written for the corporate world,
their advice about presentations can easily translate to the world of
education. These books all point out that there is more to a good presentation
than just persuading or promoting a product. The two main factors that appear
again and again are storytelling and stickiness (Hicks, 2013, p. 62). In fact,
as Hicks later states, “Presentations are often a unique blend of telling a
story, sharing information, and making an argument and presentation gurus
remind us that storytelling and stickiness are factors that go into delivering
an effective presentation” Hicks goes on to say, “It is not enough simply to
share information or step logically through an argument; the presentation must
contain some sense of passion and purpose” (Hicks, 2013, p. 67). It is a fine
line between an informative presentation that is also effective in both “storytelling”
and “stickiness” but as educators, this task is imperative for reaching our
students.
See my presentation below for the six principles from
Chip and Dan Heath’s text, Made to Stick:Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die and Joshua Johnson’s 10 Tips for Designing Presentations that Don’t Suck.
References:
Heath, C., & Heath, D. (2007). Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and
Others Die.
Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting Digital Writing: Composing Texts across Media and Genres,
61-63.
Image retrieved from http://image.slidesharecdn.com/howtocreatepresentationsthatdontsuck-140716053038-phpapp01/95/how-to-create-presentations-that-dont-suck-3-638.jpg?cb=1405542733
Johnson, J. (2010a, 2010b). 10 Tips for Designing Presentations that Don’t Suck.
