Monday, October 3, 2011

Hand to Temple in the Shape of an Imaginary Gun

I put together another little rant during the class I had with the computer-challenged prof today.
Class presentations are not a new invention in univeristy. We've been doing them since grade school. Yet they seem so foreign to some university students.
I understand that presentations can be intimidating, stressful, nerveracking, etc. But I have grown very tired of the shitty presentations some student's give.
I'm certainly not claiming to be an expert at class presentations but I at least make the effort to avoid boring my class to death and making critical mistakes that dock me marks.
If you're going to give a handout, make a PowerPoint or whatever, please for goodness sake do not write word for word what you're going to say to the class. If you do this, I may as well read directly from the handout, PowerPoint or whatever. There's no point in you even standing in front of the class. In fact, you'd be better to just sit down if this is the case because everyone's going to hear (read) what you have to say anyway and it will save you the stress of publlic speaking. However, as the presentation portion of a presentation is slightly more important than a handout, you may lose marks for sitting down and telling everyone simply to read your handout.
My advice to you is simple: Just avoid this situation by not writing exactly what you're going to say on the handout. That's what cue cards are for. The handout gives the gist, you provide the real info and evidence.
And here you have my rant of shitty class presentations that some students make us sit through, with our hands to our temples, in the shape of an imaginary gun.

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