Delivering a short presentation is part of the coursework requirements if you are completing the NCALNE (Voc) training and you’ve been part of one of our groups around the country.

From 2015 it will also be something that all our distance and online students will need to do and upload to Pathways Awarua.

Read this overview of how to prepare and deliver your presentation.

What do I need to know?

You need to know how to:

1. Gather the material that you need and prepare to present
2. Structure your presentation
3. Deliver your presentation

Prepare to present

Let’s assume that you’ve got your actual material… or at least the raw material ready because you’ve actually done the work before hand. From here you need to think about your audience, your purpose, and what visuals would be helpful.

Know your audience

You may be presenting to a group of your colleagues, in which case, you may already know quite a lot about them. However, there may also be other industry representatives present. In any case, you should make sure that your presentation is targeted to your audience. You’re also pitching your presentation to your trainer or assessor.

Have you considered any of these for your audience:

• Subject knowledge
• Age
• Gender
• Interest
• Cultural heritage
• Context
• Expectations
• Experience

As a rule of thumb, unless they’re in the same trade as you, you can probably assume that they don’t know what you know about your field, but that they are at least interested in what you’ve got to say and any wider application.

If you’re just recording your presentation, some of this won’t be relevant. But again, don’t assume detailed technical knowledge of your trade. But do assume an interested, nontechnical assessor as your audience.

Be clear on your purpose

The overall aim of this presentation is for you to showcase the work you have done around your Embedded LN Project. Your specific objectives in the talk should include:

• An outline of your embedded LN project.
• Connections between initial or diagnostic assessments you carried out, learning outcomes you designed, learning plans you created including specific learner needs and next steps, as well as the strategies, activities, and other assessment tasks you delivered.
• A brief evaluation and reflection on what you did, especially in terms of what was effective and what you’d change in the future.

Have Some visuals

Either put together some slides in Keynote or Powerpoint. Or have a short handout or out some images to pass around to the group.

Develop any visual aids (e.g. handouts, power point slides) to help with comprehension of your presentation by the audience. Don’t overdo it, or read off your slides, but having some clear visuals will improve your delivery here.

Structure your presentation

Some guidelines:

1. Your introduction should outline the purpose, context and direction of your talk.
2. The body of your presentation should deliver the main information about your embedded project LN in a logical and coherent way. Cover the highlights from each of these:
   • What were your learners’ needs? E.g. outline your diagnostic assessment data.
   • What were your embedded LN interventions? E.g. Discuss the embedded LN teaching that you did including activities and resources.
   • What progress did you see? E.g. Discuss your post assessment data in relation to the diagnostic assessment.
   • What worked? Reflect on what worked and what didn’t and what you’d do to improve things.
3. Your conclusion should encapsulate the key points from your talk.
4. Your content should be structured to help make it easy for others to understand what you did within the time you have allocated.
5. You should aim for smooth transitions between the main points of your talk.

Deliver your presentation

When you get up to give your presentation, make sure that…

1. You stick to the timeframe that you’ve been allocated. Usually, 7 to 8 minutes is fine unless you’ve been told otherwise.
2. You use language that is appropriate to the audience.
3. You use your voice to establish rapport with the audience and maintain the audience’s interest. Pay attention to volume (how loud or soft you speak), pace (how fast you speak), pitch (Whether your voice is high or low), pauses (How you stop and start), and tone (what emotion your voice conveys, e.g. nervous, enthusiastic, conversational, formal)
4. You use non-verbal communication to establish rapport, maintain interest, and help with comprehension of your talk by the audience. This means your posture, gestures, eye contact, facial expressions, and movement in general.
5. Any visual aids are integrated with your delivery and your presentation conforms to specified time-frame.
6. Your delivery demonstrates smooth transitions between main points.
7. If you use notes that this does not distract the audience’s attention from your presentation.