Presentation Zzzzzz

The Journey from Zzz to Zen

Two months ago I delivered a presentation to class parents as part of our ‘Meet the Teacher’ night at school. The presentation contained all of the necessary and relevant information for the school year ahead. Here is the presentation:

After reading the Presentation Zen blog by Garr Reynolds , and laughing along at Life after Death by Powerpoint by Don McMillan I realised (and cringed) at the many shortcomings of my presentation. Below are my reflections on these shortcomings.

Design

I have used a basic theme from google slides which seemed adequate at the time. I did not give much consideration to the design of the slides and I can see now that they are full of text and quite boring. 

Data

I had a handout with all of this information on so I can see it wasn’t necessary for me to also have it on the screen (I fear I may have just read from the slides too). My personality and character does not come across at all in this presentation. 

Symphony

The presentation is essentially a list of ‘do’s and don’ts. I haven’t considered the big picture of how students and parents may be feeling, instead I just focused on the content of what I wanted to get across.

Meaning

Whilst talking to the parents I explained my passion for teaching and the privilege of teaching the final year of primary school- but this doesn’t come across in my presentation at all. 

Layout of Slides

I haven’t used any images in my presentation. I have used bullet points excessively where it isn’t necessary. I also didn’t consider the exact purpose of each slide.

After learning about the principles of presentation zen I can see that I may have been sending my audience to sleep. An interesting article in the Guardian by Andrew Smith ‘How PowerPoint is killing critical thought‘ has also made me question the purpose and content of my presentation. When discussing a procession of endless slides he states

In the face of such a procession, we switch off, because nothing is being asked of us.

I missed the opportunity for my presentation to include parents thoughts, fears and questions- which are usually covered in a haphazard question and answer session after the presentation.

So now begins the process of improving my presentation to include all of these suggestions. I can now see the benefits of spending more time in preparing a more effective presentation. I am planning to include images whilst using the ‘Rule of Thirds‘.

And here is the first page…