Presentation Reflection
With this being the first presentation assignment, it is expected to have people not bring in the same kind of performance that an experienced presenter would give. However, there were some students that already knew what they were doing going into this project. It made me reflect on how much time I should be allocating into preparation before giving a speech. Not only that, there were some presentations that utilized the slides well enough to elevate their speech. It is easy to fall into the trap of dumping information onto a PowerPoint slide and expect people to digest all of it. Some students fell victim to this while others did not. On the topic of integrating slides into your speech, Group 2 and Group 3 did well in this regard. Group 2 made really good use of simple graphics that is easy to digest in order to better deliver their message. Their topic went over ways to engage your audience, so I thought that their execution of said topic amplified their presentation, showing that they practiced what they preach. If I had to give a critique, it would be that some of the presenters did not realize how loud they were when they spoke closely to the microphone. I had to step out of the classroom to rest my eardrums in the middle of the speech, unfortunately. I can imagine it is hard to realize this issue while being on the podium, especially when the audience in a classroom setting will more often than not elect to keep their hands down to not interrupt the presentation to let the speaker know. Thinking about it now, adjusting the position of the microphone while asking the audience if the volume is to their liking would make for a good opener in order to connect with the listeners. Other than the momentary volume problem, I also feel like there was a minor issue with the pacing. I feel like the speed of some of the presenters did not leave a lot of time to process the information being delivered. It was not enough to cause confusion, but it did not give time to think about how to apply the techniques they were talking about. Nonetheless, I did learn a lot about developing your purpose and topic, engaging and understanding the audience, citing the proper sources, and introducing supporting ideas. This group broke down speeches really well in a performance sense.
Group 3 covered the intricacies of delivering a speech. They have demonstrated their creativity in catching the listeners attention by asking questions and making humorous comments. They have also shown that as long as you know the subject you are covering, you can get by with improvisation. You can tell they were also prepared to not read from the slides without limited they are in the text. I feel like that restriction forces whoever is standing on the podium to gauge the audience retention more instead of falling into an auto-piloted state of just reading the plain text that you have noted. There was a flow to the delivery of the speech that made one idea bounce off another. It was as if the speaker was having a conversation with the listener. There is not much to really critique given that they were well prepared for this group project. It made me reflect on the communication needed to achieve the same thing within my own group. That also depends on the willingness of each member, and all the members in Group 3 seemed to me that they tried their best in this. It goes to show how far communication can go in a group effort. A member in their group likely did not have to deal other members stealing the chapters the initial member already stated they were doing at the last minute while said member was away during work, leaving them in the dust to research an entirely new topic to present in the next morning. Either way, Group 3 did a fantastic job catching the audience’s attention with an entertaining delivery while being informative.
Group 4 on the other hand was the polar opposite in my opinion. They were clearly the least prepared out of all of presenters. To be fair, it is hard to wrangle peers you have just met into doing a presentation without getting a chance to talk much with them. They were also pressed for time after Group 3’s presentation, since by the time they finished presenting, there was twenty minutes was left in class. That did not do them any favors since I got the impression they were rushing through their topics. However, whether they had time or not likely would not have mattered anyways. The plan for most of the presenters seemed to be reading everything from the slides. As a listener, I was more focused on how fast they were going to read through the slides than what was being presented because of that. Filling an entire slide of text is just overwhelming for both the speaker and the audience. It makes the speaker more likely to tune out and go with the flow of reading, and for the listener to tune out from information being read to them. A simple change from this would be to paraphrase the text that is on the screen and deliver it in a conversational tone. That can go a long way for speeches in a classroom setting.
Overall, all the groups did not let nerves get to them. I believe the fact that the speeches were given in a more casual setting has a lot to do with it. If we move on to presenting to bigger audiences, we need to build a tolerance for stage fright. I also felt like the tones for some of the speakers could be less robotic. Not that I’m expecting speeches to be on par with world leaders, but more people should learn to be more loose during a presentation. Letting loose a stream of consciousness could make your delivery less stiff alongside lowering your stress.
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