10 Tips for Presenting at Conferences

 I was at the RELC Seminar last week to do a workshop on behalf of my publishers.  The RELC Seminar used to be the seminar for young academics, and I have presented papers and conducted workshops there many times. This was also where I first met many academics whose work I have read and quoted in my own writing.  I haven’t been to this Seminar for a while, so I was looking forward to being there.

Unfortunately, I was down with a horrible cough and was only there on Day 1 to do my workshop.  But this time, I met many more teacher presenters and that is a very good sign of the growing professionalism among teachers.   On that day, I caught a keynote speech and listened to two Singaporean teacher presenters.  I must say that I was more impressed with the Singaporean teachers than the keynote speaker who, among other things, flashed a single slide with miniscule print on it. I definitely expected more from a seasoned speaker who works the conference circuits regularly. 

This led me to thinking about the topic of presenting at conferences.  I guess I can claim to be a bit of a veteran since I have presented at many conferences.  This is not to say that I have not made any mistakes.  I’ve made loads and perhaps that’s where I’ve learnt a few tricks too. And since so many teachers are beginning to present at conferences, I thought it might be useful to pull together some tips for effective presentations at conferences.

Singaporean teachers are generally good presenters. Among their strengths are the following:

1.       Excellent IT skills, with impressive PowerPoint slides.  At one time, there was a tendency towards excessive bells and whistles accompanying the slides but over the years, this has improved.

2.       Articulate, clear speakers, who are well-rehearsed too. There are, sometimes, the odd Singlish bits but most participants can still understand the message.

3.       Teacher presenters are always systematic and well organised so it is not difficult to follow their ideas.

4.       Teacher presenters often begin and finish on time, which is commendable given the tight schedule at conferences.

But there are a few things that presenters could pay more attention to. These points have been gleaned from my many experiences at conferences, and are not necessarily reflective of the teacher presenters at the recent RELC Seminar.

So, here are my ten tips for a more effective presentation at conferences.

1.       Teachers could relax a little more when presenting. Most times, they look very efficient and a little grim –the very model of the pragmatic Singaporean! Singaporeans at conferences sometimes remind me of super efficient machines; press a button and they’re off!  Our topics may be serious, but our approach need not always be solemn and staid. Smile!

2.       You may be prepared but you don’t always have to stick rigidly to your text.  Tell a story or give examples to illustrate your point. As listeners, we all remember stories or examples better than hard facts.  But then again, don’t just tell stories (see point 4), especially stories of you having a good time that have nothing to do with the topic! Get your main point out quickly before your audience’s attention is gone.

3.       Participants appreciate your handout. Try to prepare more handouts than is necessary. If you don’t have enough, do give them an email or information on where they can get access to a soft copy. This reduces anxiety among participants and they can settle down to listen without fretting.

4.       When preparing your presentation, it’s always useful to ask the “so what?” question. We all work hard at our paper and presentation but we often forget that participants who are there want to be able to take something away from your presentation for their own context. If you can ask yourself the “so what?” question, you will be forced to think of the key points of your presentation. You will also then think of the implications of your study or report for people in other contexts.  I sometimes ask the “What’s the big deal?” question too which translates into, “Why should anyone come to your presentation? What’s in it for them?”  Presenting is not just for you; it’s for your audience too. Consider their needs seriously.

5.       The K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid or Sweetheart, depending on your mood) is another useful rule for me to remember, thanks to my former professor, Bob Calfee. No matter how much wonderful data you have collected, participants do suffer from conference fatigue and may not be able to absorb that much information. This is especially when you are presenting after lunch or in the late afternoon.  Stick with the crucial bits and put the rest of the information into your handout.

6.       Never, never read from your PowerPoint alone or from your notes, standing at the podium. Get away from the podium if possible. Use a remote control so that you don’t have to stand next to your computer. You will be able to establish more rapport with your audience when you are closer to them. Maintain eye contact with as many members of your audience as is possible for you.  

7.       And when you have signalled the end of your talk, end it soon. Don’t keep going on and on after saying “and now finally” for the umpteenth time.  

8.       Leave enough time for questions. If you find you are running out of time, cut short your presentation but allow time for questions.  Your audience should be more important than presenting all your points.

9.       Remember, that above all, participants are there to listen and share in your work. They often can and do have different views to offer. Try not to be too defensive about your work. Listen carefully to their views or questions  before answering. Keep your answer succinct, if possible so that you can take more questions. Don’t allow one person to monopolise the time.  Often too, an answer is not required if a participant is merely making an observation.

10.   Thank your audience for coming and for listening. It’s only courteous to do so. And be courteous throughout. Perhaps this should have been the number one tip!

When I was doing the conference circuit years ago, I remember how we, Singaporean speakers, were always made fun of by speakers from our neighbouring countries. They contend that Singaporeans cannot speak without their overhead transparencies (the technology then) or the PowerPoint. There is some truth in this, and I was, for a while, quite wary of technology. But of course, a Power Point can be helpful and sometimes inspiring.  However, no matter how beautiful your PowerPoint is, you must remember that you are the presenter, not your PowerPoint.  You need to present, so you need to rehearse and you need to be ready. The PowerPoint cannot do the presentation for you.

And what if you were all prepared and only five people showed up? This has happened to me before many years ago as a young academic. This is not unusual if your topic is a little esoteric and not too teacher friendly (most participants are teachers looking for some practical ideas for the classroom). The rules still apply. Don’t be discouraged and focus on doing your best for the few participants there and make their time with you all the more worthwhile.

One final point. This point may have little to do with the actual presentation.  But it’s important too. Often, conferences are where we meet young presenters who are anxious to get validation for their work. I was one of them before so I always believe that, as a member of the audience, it’s important to be empathetic and helpful to these young presenters. On the other hand, I also wish that presenters are not so ready to persuade us that their study is a picture perfect one.  There are few situations where everything occurs the way you want them to. Sharing and acknowledging some problems or issues associated with the study is not an indication of poor scholarship.  Indeed, being honest about the problems and the issues surrounding your work makes your presentation more real and therefore more interesting to participants.  Any good study should not just be full of facts; it should also be full of integrity. Sadly, this is sometimes missing in conferences.

At the recent Seminar, I finished my workshop about 15 minutes earlier. That was bad but I am known to speak too quickly and do things fast. This time, my awful cough was added incentive for me to hurry through the activities. But since it was the last session of the day, I think the participants were glad to be able to go home early after the long day. But that’s not an excuse.   Try to time your presentation well and don’t be too fast or too slow. Illness is not an excuse for we all know, come hell or high water, the show must go on. With a smile too, I must add.  

But all went well, and I posed for photos with some participants from China who thanked me for the helpful ideas (some Singaporeans thanked too).  And that, I must confess, was gratifying.  I was reminded then that such courteous behaviour is something we all must emulate as participants. I for one will remember to do this more often in future.  

Children Full of Life (1 of 5)

I came across this video by chance and it must be one of the best videos on education I've seen. Here is a short description from the site Top Documentaries:

Mr. Kanamori, a teacher of a 4th grade class, teaches his students not only how to be students, but how to live. He gives them lessons on teamwork, community, the importance of openness, how to cope, and the harm caused by bullying.

In the award-winning documentary Children Full of Life, a fourth-grade class in a primary school in Kanazawa, northwest of Tokyo, learn lessons about compassion from their homeroom teacher, Toshiro Kanamori.

He instructs each to write their true inner feelings in a letter, and read it aloud in front of the class. By sharing their lives, the children begin to realize the importance of caring for their classmates.

Toshiro is an amazing example of what all teachers across the world should be like. He truly understands what teaching children is all about and certainly made a positive difference in the lives of these 10 year olds.

I recall teachers' unhappy experiences with their students' journal writing, and when I listened to the journal entries these children wrote, it is crystal clear where we have failed in our teaching. Please watch all 5 parts of this moving video. I hope it will help us all rethink what we need to do as teachers.

What makes a master teacher?

I don't know if one really can be a "master teacher". There are just too many things to learn about teaching and after 34 years or so at the job, I just know that there is so much more to learn. But this is a thoughtful discussion worth reading.


http://georgecouros.ca/blog/archives/267

Whose education is it anyway?

Picture: Pei Chun Public School

Recently, I read Will Fitzhugh’s piece entitled Audience Participation in which he discussed the situation in the US where teachers can be sacked if their students do not perform well. He wondered if it’s really the teacher’s job to motivate students to learn. If you don’t get round to reading the article here, you may find his conclusion worth thinking about (I underlined the key ideas here):

Those who keep saying that the most important variable in student academic achievement is teacher quality simply conspire with all those others, including too many students, who support the idea that academic work and student learning are the teachers’ problem, and not one in which the students have a major share. Of course teachers who are forced out of teaching because their students don’t do any academic work suffer, but we should also be concerned with the consequences for so many of our students who have been led down the primrose path of believing that school is not their primary job at which they also must work hard.

Singaporean students work very hard and I don’t doubt that. Well, they have loads of homework from their teachers, private tutors and their anxious mummies. But do they, and do we, believe that students are responsible for their own learning? Or do we blame the schools and teachers when our children don’t do well?

I often describe teaching as a challenging job. It’s easier to sit in a cubicle and type or wrestle with numbers, but try keeping a group of people engaged when they prefer to be out somewhere doing something else.  Teaching is also hard because teachers are expected to not just educate but also entertain as well. I know this because every teaching session for me is always a performance.  Come hell or high water, the show must go on and I must get out there, put on a smile, and do my best.

Keeping teachers engaged is, maybe, a lot harder than engaging students. But I am realistic. I constantly remind myself that teaching is like bowling (so says Charlie Brown, I think). You hit some but you miss a lot along the way. I am only glad to have hit some because I also believe that learning is an individual responsibility. I refuse to take that responsibility for teachers who don’t want to learn, but prefer to mark books, update their Facebook account, text their loved ones or do assorted more interesting or more pressing chores during my classes.  

I know regular teachers don’t always have my choice. To begin with, they are dealing with young people who are often deemed to be, well young, and therefore cannot be responsible for all of their actions. Then they have to deal with these young ones on a regular basis for a year, sometimes even more. You can ignore them for a day, a week, but not for a month or a term. Teachers don’t have the leisure to say, “We refuse to take responsibility for your learning”. But is this always true?

I ask this because I feel teachers take their responsibilities to their students too seriously. Whoa, I can hear all of you saying, “But they should!” Yes, they should, to a certain extent.  Are teachers always responsible for all of their students’ learning? I don’t think so. Students have to do their bit too as do their parents. But, you protest, “Isn’t that what teachers are paid to do?” Well, yes and no. Just because they are paid, doesn’t mean they have to do everything. I’m sure many of our domestic maids are paid too, but they are not expected to do everything for the child or the family.

But as I said, teachers take their jobs very seriously, and this is both a good and bad thing. The good part is that we can always rely on our teachers, but the bad part is that teachers end up doing their share of mollycoddling in school.  And how do we do that in school? Well, I can think of many ways but how about these for a start? Accepting their sloppy work and correcting all the mistakes for them, rewriting their essays so that they can copy these out, and making and printing out copious notes which students will usually put away, to be forgotten as soon as school is over?

I believe that students have a responsibility for their own learning too, and that doing all these things for them will not help learning.  Instead teachers should hold their students responsible for their sloppy work and refuse to mark them until they have shown some effort put into the piece. But alas, teachers can’t do this. Parents will come after them, they tell me. Really, I said. Do parents want teachers to condone sloppy work? Do they want teachers to set low standards for their children? Don’t they want their children to develop good habits of mind without which the A*s are not so easy to come by?   

So whose education is it anyway? Whose exam is it anyway? Since when have teachers become so disempowered that they cannot refuse to accept substandard work? And although a teacher’s worth is sadly judged by the number of A*s her students get, is it always the teacher’s fault if a student does not do well?  

But I know that desperate times require desperate measures. If the students are showing no progress, let’s give them the words, write the essays for them, excuse their shoddy work etc. But does this help them?  I ask this because I used to “help” my son the same way when he was younger. I thought that by filing his papers for him and tidying his desk, he will have more incentive to study. Wrong! He didn’t even notice that I did those things for him and it didn’t increase his motivation one iota. It made me feel useful for a while though. It didn’t take me long to understand that I did those things for me, not for him.

And isn’t it easier to give them the answers than to wait for the kids to cough them up? And after a while, the kids learn what to do to avoid thinking, and they also learn not to be in a hurry to give answers when the impatient teacher has them all at her fingertips.

Teaching is a tough job. Learning is equally tough, and students should also understand that learning often requires struggling and working hard. And we need to impress on them that they are responsible for their own learning, not their teachers, their tutors, or their mummies. Indeed, I would say that this is the one lesson that is seriously worth teaching in the classroom.