Week 11
Thursday to Sunday (Or Monday Night): Review
Concentrate on explaining the mathematics you had the most trouble with.
Tuesday: Review
Concentrate on explaining the mathematics you had the most trouble with.
Wednesday : Practice presenting your Excel project in 5 minutes.
The five minute presentation is the most challenging of all presentations to create and deliver. As a teacher, you will deliver several five to ten minute presentations. The five minute presentation, from any audiences’ perspective is more engaging and less boring, than a typical sixty minute talk—this is especially true in the classroom. In this way you can teach more in a 5 minute talk that motivates students to dig into a topic than in a 60 minute lecture. The five minute presentation is worth mastering.
YOUR JOB: Create a compelling, focused speech with two points that are each clear: the most interesting Excel feature and the elementary mathematics of your project. Focus is essential. Your class has learned so many Excel skills and has applied Excel to elementary school mathematics in so many ways. Focus on what is unique about your presentation. It probably took you hours and days to perfect your project, but you can explain the two most important points in five minutes. Yes you can!
Five Ways to a Successful Five Minute Presentation
Apply these five methods to your five minute presentation to help the class learn from your work.
Dig Deep:(1) Do enough research to understand exactly why and how your important Excel feature works. Point out the essential parts only. (2) Do enough research to understand the student need that your spreadsheet meets: what “grade level” is working with this math? Is this something that students normally struggle with? You can provide quick evidence while telling your story.
Simple Is:Narrow down your talk to that one core elementary mathematics concept and that one core Excel feature. Use this project to help you learn to eliminate extraneous information. Master excluding information so that your point is crystal clear. Good teachers know when to tell the story and when to make the point.
Practice, Practice:Rehearsal is critical for a short presentation. You have no time to pause or collect your thoughts. To engage your listeners you'll need to be smooth not bumbling. I hope you find a partner in this class you can practice with, but if not, a mirror or a friend will do. Friends are better though. Feedback can really help you get this down.
Lead With “Wow:” During a five minutes presentation you have little time to build a case or draw your audience in. The best approach is to lead with a compelling or controversial position. In this case, your Excel work should be shown first. Grab our attention with the WOW of what you did! Make us wonder, right of the bat, just how you made Excel do its magic.
Tell a Story: Teaching is not telling. A presentation full of facts, figures and statistics will quickly lose your audience. One stat may be fine to reinforce a point. But if you want to create a memorable presentation tell a story. You have a great project—the how and why you developed this project is a great story. Be prepared for questions, and prep yourself for presenting the answers before the questions are asked.
(I wildly stole ideas and wording from the Webpage below. I am citing it here. Good teachers use the best materials and edit them to fit their needs. This is not plagiarism. This is citation. Know the difference: http://sbinformation.about.com/od/marketingsales/a/fiveminuteprese.htm)