Presentations – Power Point
The major assessment of our poetry unit was presentations. Students were required to use Power Point and I gave them a few general principles to guide their use of the famous program.
- The speakers should draw their audience’s attention. The Power Point is just a tool.
- Therefore:
- Avoid animation.
- Avoid images unless they are relevant.
- Do not mix images with text.
- What you say out loud should be greater than what you present on the screen.
- Look at your audience or your partner and avoid looking at the screen.
On the whole, most students seemed relieved that they didn’t have to put on a show with Power Point. The ones that did use PPt as an anchor (ex/ Analysis of Simile // “A bell is tolling, fading, fading / just like love”) tended to spend more time analyzing how the figurative language worked and they maintained better eye contact and body language.
A few pairs chose to animate their Power Point and it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that their critical thinking was less developed. In spite of the effort that they put into their PPt, their mark on the scoring card was reduced because of this.
