So I am giving a presentation to my district math teachers on our first day back to school on Mastery Assessment. Yikes. I have made two different presentations. The first one, I edited and edited and had what I think is an okay presentation. Here it is.
So, I set it on the shelf for a few days, and then re-visited it. Ick. I asked myself, “What is the story I am trying to tell?” “Am I successful in telling a story here?”
So, I made a second version. Obviously the answer to my second question was no.
There is a minor difference right on the first page. A little better mixing of Serif and Sans Serif fonts (one of each instead of both sans serif), and there is more to tell inside.
Please, let me have it. How could I make it better. Does it now tell a better story? Is it more coherent? Obviously the information will be coming from me, the presentation is there to illustrate, not to educate. But is it doing what I want it to do?
Thanks for any feedback.
Hi! I’m planning to implement Meyer’s assessment method next year in Algebra 1, so thank you for sharing all of your work.
Here’s what I would do to your presentation (sorry, but you asked for it! and I’m kind of a nerd about presentations.)
– kill the cartoons. cute but I don’t think they help tell your story, and they are too much reading! I liked the cool cat picture better! Maybe you could juxtapose it with a picture of kids sleeping on their desks.
– your version #2 has several slides that are much easier to see the text – well done there.
– I would take out your all-text “three elements” slide and just replace it with the three separate slides that are mostly images. Include a bulleted text summary in a handout you provide after the presentation. Throw a comic in there.
– I would spend time making your flowchart prettier. (not really necessary, just an aesthetic critique.)
– Effective use of screenshots to show how you implement the scheme in your grading software – nicely done!
I hope that helps! Good luck and thanks again!
Kate,
Thank you for your suggestions. I appreciate all you said and will incorporate all of them.
THANK YOU!
Hi,
I think your presentation is awesome! The second one is definitely an improvement. I do agree with the comic suggestion above, though, even though I have been known to throw up comics every so often. The audience always has difficulty reading them and it never is as funny as I hope for.
Are you making a handout for teachers to refer back to, if this is supposed to be more than a “just so you know” presentation? If you are, will you post that too?
I really wanted to try this out in my Alg II class next year, but one of my sections was taken away from me (so now I’m only teaching one section) and we have a new department head. So I might have to wait until the following year, if I get more Alg II classes.
Thanks for posting it!
Sam Shah
Sam,
Thank you for your kind words. I did take out the Calvin cartoon. I left the Zits cartoon in, mainly because I could not figure out a way to say with a picture, “brain jumping out of head.” I tried to crop just the last frame, but it didn’t look right.
I will post the handout and the final presentation (I made the suggested changes from Kate.) The handout is very simple, containing the philosophy page from the slides, a “What do I like about this”, “What problems do I see” and a “What can I take back to my school”.
What I will also do, that will be very informative is post the recording of the presentation as an MP3. I am going to record the presentation with my iTalk and iPod. We will see how it goes and I will post the best one (I am giving it 3 times, so probably the 3rd will make it in!)