Presentation

Communication is how people exchange information. To be successful in any walk of life, a person should have good communication and presentation skills. This is why many courses include students to give a presentation. These presentations can still go on online.

Presentations can take many forms and potentially serve many purposes. Online presentations can be done both synchronous and asynchronous. A synchronous presentation can be done in a live Zoom meeting. A asynchronous presentation is filmed by the student and shared with the rest of the class. On this page will be explained how both types can be organized.

Synchronous

The way to do this #1:
Communicate the expectations of student behavior during the presentation rounds at the beginning of the session. For example, tell to turn off their microphone everyone except the speaker to avoid interruptions and make agreements on how questions can be asked.

The way to do this #2:
Following online presentations is very intensive. Therefore, limit the length of time. This can be done both by shortening the length of the presentations, by scheduling several shorter sessions or by making the presentations more interactive.

The way to do this #3:
Create a rubric or checklist that will be used during the assessment of the presentation and share it with students beforehand.

Asynchronous

The way to do this #1:
Communicate the expectations of the video to the students in advance: how much should be in the picture? What quality of image and sound is the minimum? Should a powerpoint or poster be used?

The way to do this #2:
Give students a manual on how to make a video and how to use the needed tools.

The way to do this #3:
Create a rubric or checklist that will be used during the assessment of the presentation and share it with students beforehand.

Good practice

Pitfalls

The choice for synchronous or asynchronous presentations will depend on the learning goals and what you want to evaluate.

Asynchronous presentations allow students to make many video recordings and use the best version; they can also edit a presentation. But you can assess non-verbal presentation skills better with a asynchronous presentation if you ask students to film more than only their face.
With synchronous presentations you need to make more organizational arrangements and think about the format and duration of the presentation sessions. But you can ask questions immediately after the presentation.

Another thing you should take into account is with aynchronous presentations students can spend too much time perfecting their video. This is time that usually does not contribute to achieving the learning objectives. So it's better to not assess a video on how fancy the editing is.

5 tips for a Zoom presentation

Best practice for several live presenters

Asynchronous presentation tool

Presentations can take many forms and potentially serve many purposes. Presentations can be informative, persuasive, deliver a lesson and demonstrative. There can be presented with a poster or a Powerpoint. And there can be individual and group presentations. Here we will explain these differences to you. But keep in mind: elements of these different types are often combined in a single presentation.

Types of presentations

Informative
Delivering information about a certain topic. Usually these presentations involve doing research. The goal is to educate your audience by presenting a summary of your research and “sticking to the facts.”

Persuasive
The student forms an opinion about a subject and tries to convince the audience to come around to your point of view. These presentations usually involve research as well, and the findings will be used to bolster the persuasive case the student is making.

Lesson Delivery
The student specializes in one topic of the course and gives instruction about it to the other students. Often, this presentation will be the only time that this subject is covered in class, so the student has the responsibility to teach the subject to its classmates.

Demonstration
The student models a behavior or subject matter that has been introduced previously in class. The student shows and tells the audience what it knows.

Individual presentations put all of the responsibility for preparation, research, and delivery on one student. This one student takes all the credit for the final product it produces.

Group presentations often involve more complicated tasks and therefore require more participants to make them. You can make suggestions about how the work should be divided, or the students may delegate tasks themselves. Grades may be assigned equally to everyone in the group, though many teachers assign individual grades based on some participation-level factor to inspire each member to pull his or her own weight.