With colleges and universities rapidly adopting and integrated online courses into their curriculum, it is essential for instructors to understand the most effective ways to present their information for students to remember.
“It is not a secret that you’re all facing an unprecedented set of challenges,” said Logan Smalley, Founding Director of TED’s youth and education initiative during “TED Masterclass: A Workshop for Improving Online Presentations” session at REMOTE: The Connected Faculty Summit. Smalley offered up presentation tips to help instructors meet some of the challenges they are facing presenting information, specifically through an online medium.
The center of creating a presentation that students remember revolves around a balance of good storytelling and facts, Smalley said. Good storytelling incorporates humor, personal stories and vulnerability, he said, adding that speakers should stay away from being too self-promotional and using too much industry jargon.
While personal anecdotes, subject matter expertise, a stage presence and passion all play a role in effective teaching, the key to building a memorable presentation is the “through-line”, according to Smalley. A through-line is taking all the pieces of information and creating a common theme that is digestible and memorable.
“The point of a talk is to say something meaningful. But it is amazing how many talks never quite do that. The number one reason for this tragedy is that the speaker never had a proper plan for the talk as a whole. The talk may have been planned bullet point by bullet point, or even sentence by sentence, but no time was actually spent on its overall ark,” he said.
But how can you figure out your through-line? The first step is to know your audience. What are their expectations? What do they care about? The biggest obstacle in identifying a through-line is having too much to say and not enough time to say it, Smalley said.
“It’s a simple equation. “Overstuffed equals under explained,” Smalley said. He suggests speakers “slash back” the range of information they would try and cover and instead dive deeper on a narrower topic.
Smalley offered the below checklist when developing an effective through-line.
- Is this a topic you are passionate about?
- Does it inspire curiosity?
- Will it make a difference to the audience to have this knowledge?
- Is the information fresh or is it already out there?
- Can you explain the topic in the timeslot allowed, complete with necessary examples?
- Do you know enough about the topic and have credibility to talk about it?
- What are the 15 words that encapsulates the talk?
Instructors who go through this exercise and develop a well planned through-line will then ultimately be able to present information in a manner that their students will remember, Smalley said.
These tips just scratched the surface of the TED Master curriculum. The complete list of 12 lesson are:
- What makes a great idea?
- What are your ideas?
- What’s your through-line?
- Scripting: Should you memorize?
- Voice and presence
- Connection
- Storytelling
- Explanation
- Persuasion
- Revelation
- How to think about visuals
- Deliver and record your talk