Session+11

May 9, 2011 Today was sadly our last lesson! Sara and I began by giving the students about 15 minutes to prepare for their presentations. We also reviewed the presentation tips we had shared with the class on Friday, such as making eye contact, referring to the poster, speaking loudly, not reading off the slide, etc. Although the posters and PowerPoints were outstanding, we were a little disappointed in the quality of the students' presentations. Basically every single person read the calculations right off the slide even though we kept telling them over and over (and over and over!) not to do so. Even after every group went, we would warn the next group not to read off the slides, but they still did. We understand that it is difficult not to read the slides and that it was many students' first presentations ever.

We don't totally blame the students, however. We regret not modeling for the students how not to read off a PowerPoint. Although we demonstrated a "bad presentation" and talked about why it was bad and what a "good presentation" would look like, we did not model a "good presentation." We had been planning on it, but then we decided that there was not enough time. However, this has taught us a valuable lesson: a teacher can't just tell his/her students what to do; the teacher must show the students how to do it. Despite that we wish the presentations had been better, it was evident that the students were still trying. A lot of them did try to make eye contact and sounded very enthusiastic. As they give more presentations in the future, we are confident that they will grow into better presenters. After all, practice makes perfect.

It was great to hear that the students really enjoyed doing the project! They were a very nice and fun class. We will surely miss them!