December 29, 2014
For teachers, the majority of their time is spent in front of the classroom, presenting educational material to students. But although it seems easy for them to get up in front of a group and speak, it would be much more difficult if they didn’t have a solid presentation to reference behind them.
If you’re using your holiday break to put together lesson plans and presentations for the new year, check out the following presentation tips that can help make your time teaching in 2015 a success:
- Keep word count low. Like we said earlier, presentations are there for you to reference, not for you to read word for word. However, that doesn’t mean you should sell yourself short. If something is absolutely necessary to get your point across, place it in your presentation, but do so using bullet points!
- Always use visuals. Photos and videos are a great way to aid in the learning process since they can reinforce the message you are trying to send. Furthermore, adding visuals into your presentations can help keep students’ attention since they aren’t restricted to words on a page.
- Highlight or place the most important points in bold. If students are busy copying notes off of your slides, it can be easy for them to get distracted and lose their place – especially when there is a lot of text! Therefore, it’s always a good idea to make the points that you want them to remember obvious.
- Don’t limit yourself to a certain number of slides. Instead, use as many as you need to get your point across in a clear, concise way. By restricting yourself to a certain number, you may find that you actually leave out vital pieces of information.
- Take advantage of transitions. Although they are only used for a few seconds in between slides, adding slight movement and/or colors to your presentation can help students keep their focus.
Of course, as your prepare for your presentation, you must keep the technology that you have to work with in mind. Is your classroom equipped with interactive whiteboards? What about a projection screen? Without the proper classroom technology, presentations could be difficult.
Here at Nickerson Corporation, we offer a vast selection of classroom accessories such as chalkboards, whiteboards and projection screens. If your classroom is limiting you and your ability to present material to the class, contact us for help! We work with top of the line manufacturers so that we can provide you with the exact furniture solutions you need. For more information on the products we offer, please give us a call at (631) 666-0200 today!