Energy Career Academy Guest Speaker Presentation Guide

Transcription

1 Energy Career Academy Guest Speaker Presentation Guide The purpose of this document is to provide guidance for energy company employees who will be guest speakers at the Energy Career Academy. While the guest speaker may have extensive knowledge of the subject matter at hand, he or she most likely does not have a teaching background. Guest Speaker Tips will help employees to prepare, deliver, and evaluate the effectiveness of the presentation. Preparation Step 1: Write learning objectives Learning objectives answer the questions Why am I here? and What knowledge do I want the students to gain or what do I want them to be able to do? Learning objectives should be written as measurable statements. For example, if you are teaching students about the resources that are used to generate electricity, an objective might be: Students will describe the resources that are used to generate power including coal, natural gas, nuclear, and alternative energy sources. Notice the verb describe is used rather than learn or understand, which are not measurable. The basic structure for a learning objective is: Who? Will be to know (knowledge) or do what (skill)? Some recommended verbs for writing learning objectives are included at the end of this guide. For a one hour presentation, there should be two to four learning objectives identified. Step 2: Create a presentation outline Thinking through your presentation in advance is essential. Creating a presentation outline will help you to do this. The three parts of the presentation are the Opening, Body, and Closing. Opening: Consists of introducing yourself, building credibility, and stating the learning objectives. Jot down some notes about how you want to

2 introduce yourself and build credibility and document the learning objectives in this section. Body: Where the bulk of your content resides. It is important to think through your content from the perspective of the student who knows nothing about the topic. For building knowledge, start with the broad, and then proceed to the details. For developing skills, break each skill into steps, writing them in your outline. Closing: The part of the presentation where you pull everything together and summarize. You may want to write out your summary in this section. Step 3: Think about how to make the presentation interactive Talking at a room full of high school students may be an invitation for drooping eyelids. Think about ways to engage students so they are not passive recipients of information. Several practical ideas are included in the article How to Engage Our Audience: The Top 10 Techniques at the end of this guide. Step 4: Develop handouts It is important to have some type of handout for the students. This can be as simple as a word document with your main points and lines for taking notes, a print out of your PowerPoint presentation (if you are preparing one), or an article. If you are preparing a PowerPoint presentation, keep your text to phrases, not sentences. Remember, the purpose of the PowerPoint is to help your presentation to flow and to give students something to follow along, not for the students to read lengthy text. You should limit each slide to six lines with no more than six words per line. If you are using phrases, this should not pose a problem. Step 5: Practice your presentation Practicing your presentation in advance with one of your colleagues may ease your jitters when you get up to teach the class. It will also help you to identify anything you may have left out, sections that need to be clarified, or pieces that can be left off, then modify your presentation. Offer to take your colleague to lunch after you finish your rehearsal! Delivery You ve done all of the prep work and it s time to do your presentation. Here are some pointers to maximize the effectiveness: Start with a strong opening First, introduce yourself and build credibility. Tell the students about your tenure at your company, what you do, and why you are an expert on the topic. Next, sell

3 your audience on the need to listen. Build the students curiosity. Why are they learning about this? Is there an interesting story you can tell related to the topic? Then, finally, go over the learning objectives. Use effective questioning strategies Not only should you take questions from the students, but asking questions of them as well will keep them on the ball and engaged. Here are some tips from the book Cues for Effective Questioning by C.J. Cook and C.M. Rasmussen: Ask open ended questions (no questions should be able to be answered with a yes or no or other one word answers) Ask one question at a time Pause 3 5 seconds after you ask a question before calling on someone to respond Call on participants randomly Acknowledge all responses to show that each is valued Withhold criticism or praise of responses and acknowledge all input Rephrase rather than repeat questions that are not understood Encourage interaction by having participants answer questions in small groups first then report back to the full class End with a powerful closing Review, highlight and emphasize key points, benefits, recommendations Draw conclusions Where are we? What does all of this mean? What's the next step? Thank students for their attention Evaluation While a formal evaluation form is not necessary after your presentation, it is helpful to ask for verbal feedback from students. You can pose questions such as: What did you like best about the presentation? What are the two to three things you will remember most? What topics were confusing? Any recommendations for improvement? Since you are not their teacher and can t give them a grade, they are more likely to provide the candid feedback you are looking for. It is also important how you ask the questions. Do your best to come across as open and wanting their feedback.

4 Action Verbs for Learning Objectives Abstract Activate Acquire Adjust Analyze Appraise Arrange Articulate Assemble Assess Assist Associate Breakdown Build Calculate Carry out Catalog Categorize Change Check Cite Classify Collect Combine Compare Compute Contrast Complete Compose Compute Conduct Construct Convert Coordinate Count Criticize Critique Debate Decrease Define Demonstrate Describe Detect Develop Differentiate Direct Discuss Discover Discriminate between Distinguish Draw Dramatize Employ Establish Estimate Evaluate Examine Explain Explore Express Extrapolate Formulate Generalize Identify Illustrate Implement Improve Increase Infer Integrate Interpret Introduce Investigate Judge Limit List Locate Maintain Manage Modify Name Observe Operate Order Organize Perform Plan Point Predict Prepare Prescribe Produce Propose Question Rank Rate Read Recall Recommend Recognize Reconstruct Record Recruit Reduce Reflect Relate Reorganize Repair Repeat Replace Report Reproduce Research Restate Restructure

5 Revise Rewrite Schedule Score Select Separate Sequence Sing Sketch Simplify Skim Solve Specify State Structure Summarize Supervise Survey Systemize Tabulate Test Theorize Trace Track Train Transfer Translate Update Use Utilize Verbalize Verify Visualize Write

6 How To Engage Our Audience The Top 10 Techniques By Andrew Ivey When it comes to organizing our presentations there really is a lot more to the planning process than the PowerPoint palette. On its own a PowerPoint slide deck will not organize your talk for maximum audience engagement. It will not, on its own, enable an audience to follow the flow and momentum of a presentation. Instead we can rely on a set of well used presentation techniques for keeping our audience engaged. Here are the top 10 techniques that we have available: 1. Tell them technique. Many presenters rate the effectiveness of the Tell them technique. It has 3 main components. The first stage involves us telling our audience what we are about to tell them, the second phase has us telling the audience and the third and final stage involves us telling the audience what we have just told them. Simple indeed. Effectively it's a repetition technique and something that has echoes in many other rhetorical devices. 2. Stepping stone or way marker technique. Once we have prepared the working objectives for our presentation it should be very easy to use this technique. It involves us plotting stepping stones or markers that readily identify where we are in a presentation. Our main presentation points are plotted at the beginning and the end of our presentation structure. Our two lesser points are then plotted between them effectively bridging the two main points. By following the logical steps we reach the conclusion. 3. Acrostic technique. This sounds painful but is in fact very easy to prepare. It is a technique, used by many speakers, that dates back millennia certainly to the ancient Greeks. Using what is essentially a word puzzle the speaker employs a technique for spelling out the theme of a presentation plus its major defining points. Using either the first, middle, last or consecutive letters of a word in a line allows the speaker to spell out a major theme. Here is an example from a quality management presentation: o Ethos o E Excellence o Th Thoroughness o O Openness o S Success It is a very powerful technique that has great value for subsequent audience recall. 4. Anecdote and story technique. Who can deny the power of New Testament parables or the fables of Aesop. Stories have been used throughout history to commend a course of action or explanation. And today is no different. Yes, they are most appropriate for presentations with a moral foundation but they are equally at home in presentations

7 dedicated to customer service, loyalty and team work. The short management text, "Gung Ho!", by Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles is a collection of such stories. 5. Problem, cause, solution technique. This technique could be paraphrased as the what, so what, now what technique. It enables the speaker to map out a problem that is well known to the audience, detail its causes and then expound on a solution. Exploring the underlying causes of a problem gives room for sub points. A variant might include a set of competing solutions to the problem, an appraisal of their relative strengths and a conclusion with a best fit proposal. 6. Analogy technique. With an analogy we use something that is familiar to our audience to either drape over the unfamiliar or support the evidence of the unfamiliar. For an audience of telecoms executives one might reference the business of customer service to that of a mobile handset. Where we have signal strength we need trained staff; where we have a lithium polymer battery we need motivated people and where we have clear screen technology we need staff incentives...and so on. The analogy gives us the opportunity to paint a well known familiar picture to which we hook some less known points. We leave it to our audience to make the obvious associations. 7. Logical technique dilemma. Logical structures are the rhetorical devices of old. Long taught and much admired, there is a tendency to overlook them because of their familiarity not least because of their use in courtroom drama. With the dilemma technique we supply logical, reasoned proof that an alternative viewpoint or proposition is invalid. Today it might be labelled evidence based policy/ practice. 8. Logical technique deductive logic. Here we make two proposals or statements; one is primary and the other is secondary. Each statement has a common element. We then make a third statement that can be logically implied by the other two statements. Here is an example: o All managers have hidden talents o You are a manager o Therefore you have hidden talents It is a powerful device that is easily followed by an audience. 9. Logical technique inductive logic. With this technique we can arrive at a generalization a broad conclusion. Less finite than deductive logic, it allows us to make a series of observations with shared circumstances, and then propose a conclusion. Here is an example: o This manager can present well o Steve, the HR manager, is a good presenter o My manager, John, is a good presenter o All our managers are good presenters The inductive reasoning technique is inherently less robust than deductive reasoning and is best used when we have shared circumstances or employment with our audience the same enterprise, division or team. 10. Logical technique analogy. We use this technique when we cite an example or case study with seemingly identical characteristics to the subject matter. We make the suggestion that if the case study has the

8 same characteristics then it is logical to suggest that it shares identical causes or fundamentals with the main subject; identical characteristics equate to identical beginnings. It is a well used approach that works well but do take care when selecting the analogy. These top ten techniques are invaluable aids for organizing more effective presentations. They are well used but not outdated. They can support contemporary events and circumstances. They are useful regardless of the scale of the speaking event. And, importantly, they are equally valid for the range of speaking opportunities we face board room, conferences, seminars or hospitality events. In short they are essential tools for effective speakers. Andrew Ivey is the principal presentation skills trainer at Time to Market the UK presentation skills training resource. Public Speaking Training Time to Market Article Source: