How do You Teach Poise In an Online Presentation Environment
For myself, I have honed my ability to speak in a group setting by practice, practice, practice. I have studied co-workers, teachers, and other students for tips on how to present myself. I have had teachers who told me to stand up straighter, smile, speak louder. I could see my instructor's face giving me encouragement. I do this for my on the ground students, and the results are amazing. How can you accomplish this in an online setting?
Sonia:
The only way I know of to teach presentation skills in an online setting is to have students videotape themselves performing these skills and submit it for evaluation and feedback. This can be an expensive approach if students do not have the knowledge and skills, equipment, and software to produce a digitized version of their presentation.
Satrohan
Teaching students to be active listeners/fully take in what is written while responding to questions or providing feed back in an unbiased manner increases their ability to effectively deal with group interaction.
Shon:
To your recommendations, I would like to add providing students with a set of rules to manage and support group interaction.
Satrohan
I believe what Mr. Mangal said can help, and I have to add that to find the right audience is also hard to get. Another way could be to set up a video conference.
Fernando:
Video-conferencing could be a viable option to teach overt behavioral skills; however, not all students may have access to this facility. Moreover, we have to consider student availability when scheduling these conferences. A more significant factor we have to consider is how do we assess students' achievement of objectives that are behaviorial-----poise, stance, avoiding distractors when presenting etc.
Satrohan
A basic need is to teach Netequette. This was mentioned in the quiz for this section but not really discussed in the text....it probably should be in the syllabus. Too often I have read posts that include SHOUTING or nasty comments.
A set of basic guidelines and explaining that in group discussions you have the power to cut people off if they misbehave (rare, but one case will go a long way for discipline) will make them "mentally" sit up straight. I think this largely comes down to the students taking e courses seriously.
Richard:
Blocking delinquent students from participating in discussions is an effective strategy. Often we find such students even though we have provided the rules for Netiquette. What I have never seen done is instructors providing a warning that they are capable of dropping students from discussion or will drop them if necessary. This is a valuable suggstion. Most of the institutions with which I work have an adult student population. Perhaps this is the reason why their Online Instructors do not stae the warning.
Satrohan
I agree, video typing yourself is the way to go, perhaps standing in front of the mirror. Also do a presentation for family and friends and recieve feedback based on your performance
Dario:
A good idea; however, for this strategy to yield the desired results, the persons evaluating your presentation must have the experience and qualifications to apply the criteria you will be using to evaluate the presentation.
Satrohan
I agree that the video taping or web recordings are a better way to have an evalutaion of the presenter.
Jon:
Pleas eelaborate on the reasons for choosing these methods.
Satrohan
We can hone our ability to speak in a online course likewise. Our messages should be professional and encouraging to students. They should give positive feedback and constructive criticism.
The way I write my messages tells alot about they type of person I am, and similiarly, the personalities of our students come through in their writing. We can encourage our students to speak up more by asking them open-ended questions and giving them an opportunity to discuss the topic.
This is one of the hardest things to practice, it is hard enough doing it in person in front of a class, and it gets more complicated when doing it on line. Presentation is all about eye contact and getting the information to an audience. I believe videotaping can definitely help to see ourselves in our performance, posture and dynamics, but how do we deal with nervousness when we don't have anybody in front of us? That is factor that only the real experience makes us go through.
Miguel:
You are correct in your judgment. Wwhen we use videotaping to demonstrate presentation skills, we cannot take all factors that influence performance.
Satrohan
well you need to figure out if Video is needed or not.. Video is just Images in a sequence. I would some images or photos of poses with come descriptions. such as.. PROPER POSE.. and IMPROPER POSE.. next to each other.
Flash can be used.. with hot spots for students to click the wrong portions of an image. for example they would study an image.. and identify what is wrong.. such as.. the person in the image is not smiling.. they would click where the smile should be.. to identify. interactive is always good. ;)
Andrew:
Your suggestions about the use of still images is well taken. In my opinion, that will not be enough. We have to capture the behavior "in action"----the way it occurs in a live environment.
Satrohan
Just as on-site classes have "classroom policies and procedures" I would expect the same from the online environment. Soft skills need to be a focus and developed for the online learner, as well. If the instructor doesn't teach the student proper Netiquette, who will? Perhaps the students really don't realize what they are doing is offensive or unprofessional. This could affect their ability to become employable, rendering all their time & effort for naught.
Adele,
Great thought - I know that I have to work with students who aren't professional in their communication (TYPING IN CAPS, using texting slang), and its something the job market expects.
Jon
