Written by Brooke Heather
Presentations. Arguably one of the most important assessment types you can have. They are a showcase of what you know and how awesome your presenting skills are. Whether you’re doing online or in-person presentations, they all come with their fair share of challenges. As someone who has always been involved in all opportunities to give presentations, over the years I’ve accumulated some go-to tips on the execution of them.
Know What’s Expected
Most likely, you’re doing a presentation for an assignment. Be extra sure to pay attention to the task, format, subject outcomes and marking criteria and take notes on what the specifics are. Presentations can be an interesting way to present what you’ve learnt in your topic and there’s room to get a bit creative.
Practice
Practice makes perfect. How do you practice? Get involved in activities that may require you to give presentations. Presentations are usually required in careers after university too so it’s important to build your confidence and get familiar with them. I would strongly recommend signing up to be a mentor for the Uni Foundations program as your presenting skills will grow immensely over the program.
Tone
I know everyone is familiar with this term but let’s talk specifics. Each assignment is of course unique to the topic and therefore requires different tones. For example, in a presentation about a serious and/or sensitive topic, remember to maintain sincerity and respect in your tone. Another example could be a presentation on a more factual and potentially boring topic where you may want to adopt a more captivating tone to engage your audience.
Recording Software
For anyone who’s doing online presentations, you must consider how you’re recording it. Firstly, I can say that good headphones are a game changer, if you don’t have a pair and are looking to buy, I would suggest checking what discounts are currently going for university students through Uni Days. Panopto is our university’s recommend recording platform and is super user-friendly. There are heaps of resources on using Panopto available on our website and in Brightspace.
Learning
There are a variety of brilliant workshops available to us that can improve your writing and therefore assist with the flow of a presentation. The other great utility about the workshops is you can take note of how they’re presented; this applies to observing how your coordinators present too.
The Take-Home
Try not to overthink presentations as realistically you’re just expressing a topic and elaborating on your slide’s content. Remember that it takes time to perfect your presenting skills and it an require lot of effort until it becomes easier, however, it will come with time.
Charlie blog is a SSAF funded initiative.
