Do we know what we are looking for in student presentationsand how can we help them to achieve it

1
Do we know what we are looking for in student
presentationsand how can we help them to achieve
it?

• Kate Smith, Brunel University
• kate.smith_at_brunel.ac.uk

2
Who am I and what am I doing?

• LearnHigher Oral Communication Learning Area
  Coordinator
• Support development of and assess oral
  communication skills
• Want to find out
• how effective are current approaches and
  resources?
• how can we improve them?

3

• What makes a student oral presentation
  excellent?
• What are we looking for?

4
What students were pleased with about their
presentations

• PowerPoint presentation
• Content, topic
• Well-structured and relevant
• Fluency, fluidity - no err or hmm
• Clear speaking voices
• Collaboration, cooperation, how everyone worked
  hard
• Video
• Interaction with audience
• Timing

5
What students thought could be improved about
their presentations

• More rehearsal/preparation smoother change-
  overs, speaking without cards, would have
  made us more confident and stick to the time
  limit
• background knowledge necessary to answer the
  questions fully
• more creative, bit boring
• more precise slides, more catchy slides and
  props
• more interactivity with the tutors and added
  much humour rather than being a formal
• presentation

6
What caused prior concern for students?

• Reliability/ability of others group members
  would forget their parts as some were
  international students, we had non-English
  speakers in our group so I was worried we would
  get marked down
• Letting team down
• Lack of rehearsal
• Audience some of my group members became
  increasing sic restricted with the greater
  number of people to present to, presenting to
  several academics - a new experience which was
  initially off-putting
• Lack of understanding of assessment
  criteria/expectations
• Venue, equipment
• Usual nerves, being nervous as it meant a lot
  
• General phobia of public speaking

7
What students thought would reduce their concerns

• Expectations - Provide a clearer marking scheme
  and outline prior to preparation
• Have technical support
• Consistency - Make it constant across the board,
  or highlight how many people we would be
  presenting to
• Timing Give a week's rehearsal time this
  side of the Xmas holidays
• Group Assessment - reduce the grade of the
  person who is not pulling their weight!
• 2nd language speakers reassure people they
  will not get marked down, take into
  consideration students that cannot speak English
  very well
• Over-dependency? - check presentation a
• number of times

8

• What issues do we need to consider, and what
  action can we take, to ensure we provide
  opportunity for all of our students to give
  excellent presentations?

9
Students suggestions for improvement

• advice from tutors should be more standardised
• What was expected, and what needed to be done
  for a good grade
• If there is more percentage (about 50) of the
  final grade, people will work harder on it
• would have been good to receive written
  feedback, not just a grade
• you cant expect a group of 8 to be able to make
  a 20 min presentation and expect each person to
  be able to say something significant
• Attitude/approach of assessors The staff
  viewing the presentation looked disinterested,
  which was an annoyance
• giving lecturers an opportunity to assess the
• presentation in a relaxed environment

10
Exploring factors that impact on student
presentations

• Role of self-awareness and self-efficacy
• Value and reliability of peer assessment
• Impact of cultural norms on oral presentations
• Lack of clarity, or understanding, of assessment
  criteria

11
Role of self-awareness and self-efficacy

• Role of video-supported reflection (Krasniewski,
  2001)
• Value of a peer model performance (Adams, 2004)
• Third most disliked teaching and learning method,
  with 21 of the votes (Sander et al, 2000)
• Impact of stress in self- and peer assessment
  (Pope, 2005)

12
Value and reliability of peer assessment

• Comparative reliability of peer and teacher
  assessments (Magin Helmore, 2001)
• Students can make valid judgments independent of
  their own skill level (Hughes Large, 1993)
• Allows students to develop confidence and the
  ability to make value judgements (MacAlpine,
  1999)
• Importance of clarity of marking criteria and
  guidance in applying it (Pope, 2005)

13
Impact of cultural norms

• Lack of opportunity and cultural permission
• Avoiding eye contact
• Preference for group or individual presentations
• Fear of grammatical errors and unintelligible
  pronunciation
• Structure linear and circular
• Explicitness high context culture and low
  context culture (Johnson, 1997)

14
Assessment Criteria and Feedback

• Is this useful in terms of
• Guiding students as to what is expected?
• Providing students with useful feedback?
• Enabling/encouraging the assessor to assess
  fairly and provide useful feedback?

15
In conclusion

• Excellence in setting expectations
• Excellence in supporting skills development
• Excellence in facilitating practice
• Excellence in assessment
• we practised as much as a possible and other
  than that theres not much that can be done.