Presenting

As stated several times before, the keys to a successful presentation lies in the preparation.  Even though this next section is all about delivering the presentation itself, all of the practices in this module should be planned well before the start of the session.

Most successful presenters, whether they’ve been trained in education theory or not, create lessons that meet educational principles for strong learning outcomes. Wrapping your lesson around an educational model is a technique that will allow you to keep your lesson focused on the learning objectives set previously, and deliver content that meets both presenter and participant learning goals. Though you are free to use any educational model that you prefer, this module will begin by illustrating how you can apply Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction to any online presentation.

Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction

Robert Gagne, a psychologist who created several lasting instructional theories of education, is responsible for the educational model of the Nine Events of Instruction. ^[1] This theory posits that learning best occurs when certain conditions are met. As you finalize your presentation, make sure that you’ve included opportunities to complete the following steps:

1. Gain the Participants Attention: Calling your learners to attention could be as simple as a welcome explanation, a teaser video of what’s to come, or the sharing of a problem or story. Grab the attention of your participants with a taste of what’s to come.
2. Inform Learners of Lesson Objective(s): Though you have shared the learning objectives previously before the participants signed up, restate those objectives to let learners know exactly what they will be doing. This is well-housed in a PPT slide if you are giving a slide-based presentation.
3. Prompt Learners to Recall Prior Knowledge: Remind learners of previous lessons or knowledge that will be built upon over the course of the lesson. Helping participants to build a connection to their past experiences is helpful for their encoding of new information.
4. Present the Content: This is where you share the core material for the lesson. Focus on presenting one idea at a time to help facilitate knowledge transfer.
5. Provide Guidance: Based on the content that you have just presented, give an example of that knowledge in action. This could be in the form of a demonstration or visual aid.
6. Elicit Performance: Ask participants to complete a task that will highlight their grasp of the material just presented.
7. Provide Feedback: Offer participants positive reinforcement in the form of feedback on the performance activity that they have just completed.
8. Assess Performance: Offer an additional task that will allow you provide additional feedback. This could even be an assessment item such as a quick poll or quiz.
9. Enhance Retention and Knowledge Transfer: Help the learner to put this new knowledge into context with additional examples or an explanation of how the material fits into a larger picture or schema. Offer more opportunities for practice outside of the lesson.

These principles can be applied to an individual concept, somatic unit, or entire online lesson. The time involved in completing each event of instruction can vary greatly – make sure that you have included each event, but are still staying true to the timetable created for the session. For instance, while in a face-to-face class you might complete step eight of Assessing Performance as a test, but as a webinar, this would be scaled back to an online poll.

Engagement with Storytelling and Humor

Good presentations are engaging and compelling. Think back on presentations that resounded with you or moved you to action – how many times did this occur in part because of the charisma and energy of the presenter? You can immediately increase the level of engagement in your presentation by including opportunities for anecdotal evidence and laughter.

While it’s tempting to overload our participants with statistics and research data as a means of furthering understanding, you can often reach your audience more effectively by simply telling a story. Educational psychologist Susan Weinschenk writes that “anecdotes persuade more than data. Information is processed more deeply and remembered longer if it has an emotional hook. Look for ways to provide a message that will evoke emotions and empathy. Use anecdotes in addition to, or into place of, factual data.”
In setting the tone for the webinar, you can further a sense of community with the addition of humor. Weinschenk shares, “synchronous communication online should lead to more bonding if it allows for laughter. You don’t necessarily need humor or jokes to get people to laugh. Normal conversation and interactions will produce more laughter than intentional use of humor or jokes. If you want people to laugh, and laugh yourself. Laughter is contagious.” ^[2] Indeed, a relaxed session that leaved participants smiling will have a greater propensity for memorability and return visits than one that does not. Letting your participants know that you are having a good time will help them to do the same.

“Play is the highest form of research.”
– Albert Einstein