The Problem
Oh the classroom presentation. Nervous students mumble their way through an obviously copied and pasted, paragraph length bullet on an over animated PowerPoint slide. This is agony for teachers and anyone still awake in the room. This needs to change. Previously I explored the practicality of stand-biased classrooms and movement in classrooms. From that inspiration I experimented with an alternative way for classroom presentations.
We do a lot of formal and informal sharing opportunity and presentations in my class. As previously stated, students fall to the safety of the PowerPoint presentation. Most of the time, they are painfully boring and poorly presented. Of course, every teacher goes through the do's and don't, warns them of the penalties for not following the presentation rubric categories, and with hope and enthusiasm the teacher is ready for "the best presentations ever!"
Inevitably they end up the exact same way; the definition of insanity.... Students turn to reading what everyone else can easily read. Because they only have to present it for those couple minutes, they mumble their way through, often reading it out loud for the first time, never really knowing what they are reading. They definitely have not learned the material you intended them to, and worse yet, no one else has learned anything.
I hope that other teachers will chuckle in frustration and reflection of their last painful presentation. Hopefully this is a problem in other classes and not just mine. I decided that with standing classrooms as my motivation and inspiration I would experiment with an alternative way of presenting this week.
The Setup
1. There were eight presentations in total. Students chose to partner up. Each pair had to research a topic and create five higher level questions for their student audience. Example: How did the court case impact future laws and cases. NOT When did the court case take place?
The students also had to email me their questions and answers. I compiled them into handouts for after the presentations.
2. The presenters were then given a large Bristol board to create a tri-fold informative poster as a visual aid. The idea was that they could still have pictures, charts, graphs, or information, but it would be placed in front of the students so they could not simply read off of the poster.
The students also had to email me their questions and answers. I compiled them into handouts for after the presentations.
2. The presenters were then given a large Bristol board to create a tri-fold informative poster as a visual aid. The idea was that they could still have pictures, charts, graphs, or information, but it would be placed in front of the students so they could not simply read off of the poster.
3. Presentation Day. The class was split into two groups.
The presenters- scattered at four stations, two in the classroom and two in the hallway.
The viewers were scattered evenly at the four presentation stations. They were equipped with a pen and paper to take notes during the presentation.
The presenters- scattered at four stations, two in the classroom and two in the hallway.
The viewers were scattered evenly at the four presentation stations. They were equipped with a pen and paper to take notes during the presentation.
Each presentation was five minutes long, with a rotation to the next presentation until each presenter had presented four times and the audience had the chance to see every presentation.
Then we switched. The presenters became the audience for the others. At the end of those rotations the students answered each other ' s questions. The students were able to use their notes to answer the questions.
Then we switched. The presenters became the audience for the others. At the end of those rotations the students answered each other ' s questions. The students were able to use their notes to answer the questions.
How did it work?
One group did an awesome job, one group did a terrible job, and the rest did pretty well. It was a pretty normal bell curve of expectations. Because the students had to present four times, the students became more confident every time they presented. Their presentations got progressively better each time.Also because the information was in front of the presenter, they couldn't read off of the chart. It was harder for them to fake it. Even if they wrote notes on index cards, they generally knew the information by the fourth time.
For students who were viewing the presentations, they had to move every five minutes, write notes, and eventually answer questions, meaning they had no time for cell phones and had to pay attention. They also did not know the questions that were going to be asked so they were more apt to ask questions to the presenters for clarification.
As teacher, there were two of us, each with rubrics; the presenters had chances to be graded twice. We discussed each group's grades and adjusted for improvements. I found that it was a pretty fair grading practice for the students, the luxury of co-teaching a class.
Tweaks
The students pointed out to us that anyone presenting could not possibly view presentations at the same time. Oops! We totally missed that obvious flaw. We quickly tweaked the requirements on the go. Each person presenting was not responsible for any of the questions for the presentations occurring at the same time.
I don't know what to do for students who skip/miss class that day. How do they receive the benefit of viewing the presentations if they aren't present? How doe they answer the questions? It's not really a make-up-able assignment.
Conclusion
This needs to be done again in class so that students are aware of their expectations. It was an experiment, but one that I would say was generally successful. If nothing else, it opens the door for other possibilities and ideas.
Try it out, tweak it, then teach me a thing or two!
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