Presentation Skills

This nanodegree will give the students a platform to practice presentations and gain perspective on how they can use both their online and their physical environments. In weeks 2 and 3, each student will take one of their previous presentations and revise it under the teacher’s guidance using the principles learned in this class. In week 4, the students will present their skills after which they will receive and give feedback to other students.

Alternatively, students can create a completely new presentation on a topic of their choice and they can work in pairs.

The class will be highly interactive, fun and especially encouraging for students who are a little more introverted.

Each student will receive free access to the video course “Public Speaking Presentations done well” on Udemy (https://www.udemy.com/course/presentationskill), which is valid even after the nanodegree is completed.

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Week 1: Nervous? Welcome to the club!

Aim: Developing interest for the topic, learning that presenting can be fun, addressing and learning to deal with stage fright.

- Golden rule: making mistakes is allowed
- Exercise: Tell us who you are (Self-presentation)
- Discussion: How (not) to give a good presentation
  * Previous experiences / attitude towards giving presentations
  * What makes a presentation boring?
  * Can something informative also be fun?
- Discussion: Stage fright
  * When are we nervous and why?
  * How do you deal with nervousness?
- Mighty tips & tricks against nervousness
- Final project description

Week 2: Slide all the way

Aim: Developing an understanding of how slide design impacts the audience and how to

use it to achieve the desired effects.

- Exercise: Yay or nay – recognize good and bad slides
- Working with text information
  * Structuring a presentation
  * Deciding what and how much information to include
  * Text positioning
- Exercise in pairs: Decide which information from provided texts would be included when making a presentation (texts based on students’ interests)
- Visual design
  * Backgrounds, colors and compositions
  * Show, don’t tell: Working with images
  * Little secrets of professionals
- Working on own presentations

Week 3: Presenting makes perfect

Aim: Acquiring the “tools” to steer the audience’s attention as well as covering the basics

of body language and vocal variety.

- Attention
  * Discussion: Who’s the star of the show?
  * How to direct the audience’s attention
- Basics of public speaking
  * Body language
  * The language of the face
  * The music of voice – avoiding monotony
- Interactivity
- Working on own presentations

Week 4: Showtime

Aim: Performing the revised version of own presentation, receiving and giving feedback to

other students.

- Presentations + Feedback
- Closing discussion: learnings, favorite memories, mutual feedback