Tags
education, Faculty Development, presentation, presentation revolution, public speaking, superteacher, workshop
Each year, I make three personal work goals to help me continue progressing as a faculty member of the English Department at my university. In early 2012, I made three goals: 1) to return to school to pursue a second M.A. degree in Interpersonal Communication, 2) to build stronger relationships with my online students and to build a stronger “classroom” experience for them, and 3) to present a Faculty Development workshop on campus. Well, I began school again in August, 2012, and Chiara Ojeda and I have retooled the online class a total of three times already this year with a fourth and fifth reboot on the way. The last goal to fulfill is the Fac Dev Workshop.
You can see my slideshow-in-progress above. I plan to introduce classroom faculty to the presentation revolution and to give them a basic idea of what it is, who started it, and why it is important. It was inspired by many, many things, but especially:
1) Re-reading Nancy Duarte’s Resonate again (and again)
2) How To Be A Presentation God by Scott Schwertly
3) Suzy Johnson’s guest lecture about design and typography
4) Chiara Ojeda’s absolutely gorgeous, inspiring, amazing “Your Speech Is Toxic” deck
5) Continuous student feedback on the terrible quality of their teachers’ presentations.
I plan to present it to faculty in November or December of 2012 so that I can close out another successful year of meeting my personal career goals. Hopefully, I can also inspire a teacher or two to ditch the bulleted slides, to come out from behind the podium, to turn the lights on, to tell stories, and to start actually teaching.
What goals did you set for your career this year? With time running out, how do you plan to achieve them in the next three months?
Hopefully teachers can get out of “teacher-directed” mode. Teaching is far more interesting when you add projects (where you teacher STUDENTS to make good slides :), differentiation, book clubs, constructivist activities, and more.
I agree, Janet! Thanks for your comment.
I have been asked a few times if I run seminars for teachers… But have always resisted… Not because I don’t believe that we can improve; but because people get most defensive when they “identify” with the role – teaching a teacher to teach is like telling a top chef that there is not enough salt on his signature dish. How do you cope with egos?
Hey Conor, I couldn’t have worded the struggle better myself.
It’s so difficult because no one actually earns a degree in “teaching.” Even a degree in education doesn’t explain how to teach. So, some teachers learn how in the classroom on their own, but most teachers don’t and will spend their entire career not knowing what they’re doing and how/why they’re doing it. This means students are hurting because unqualified people are not actually teaching them the way that they learn. And, I would argue, once a person knows and understands the basics of 21st century presenting, that person can learn how to be a teacher.
I am explaining in my Faculty Development workshop that “teaching” is really an eternal learning process where we must have constant critique and feedback in order to grow. Most managers, though, don’t know how to give teachers good feedback and advice on improving their teaching because they aren’t versed in public speaking and presentation. At the end of my workshop, I am offering to come into campus teachers’ classes to give them some good feedback on public speaking and presentation. Whether or not they take that offer is entirely up to them. We can’t force people to GET REAL even though their students will suffer until they do…
How do YOU cope with egos?
Up til now, I try to only teach, coach or work with people who have hit that moment in Confucious’ tale where they have emptied their cup. Here is my teaching manifesto: http://conorneill.com/2011/11/18/teaching-manifesto/
However, I am increasingly on the search for ideas on how to open people up to learning new things.
I love the post! I just “followed” your blog. Thanks so much for sharing your ideas.