by: Amanda Rioux
While the individual weekly modules for ENL 265 contain a lot of helpful reading materials, I find that students will engage with the key concepts more if I provide supplemental materials. One way I do this is through “mini presentations” which I conduct during Zoom meets.
Many of them find the provided readings to be helpful and informative albeit a bit dull. My goal was to further help them comprehend the key concepts in a way that was a bit more engaging and exciting. The presentations I give cover the key concepts and also include relatable examples: in a slide discussing tone, I shared an image of a text message where the a person simply responded “k.” We had a discussion about how “k” is an insufficient response and can leave us feeling confused by the intended tone. Is this person being sarcastic? Dismissive? Although a simple example, it helped them to understand exactly why conveying the correct tone is important in their writing.
Similarly to the text message example, the presentations also include slides with prompts on them. These serve as mini brainstorming sessions for them and help get them to actively participate in the Zoom sessions. I will pose a question and give them 3-5 minutes to think of a response, and then allow them to share their response with the class.
I wanted to share an example of a mini presentation here. I create them using the app Canva, which has many great templates to work with. In mid-February I conducted a SurveyMonkey poll in which I asked students if they found the presentations to be helpful, and the response was a resounding “yes.”
For this particular presentation, the topic is active vs passive voice. It’s a topic I covered in the week 6 presentation I gave, but after looking over the 6.1 assignment responses I saw that a few students still had a hard time fully comprehending. More specifically, they struggled with the passive voice sentences which did not include a subject. (For instances, many of them thought “Tim Hagen” was the subject of the sentence “The completed form should be submitted to Tim Hagen by the 15th of every month,” and had a difficult time turning this example into active voice).
As a result I created an “extra practice” presentation which we went over in the second half of week 6. I have provided a link below in case anyone wanted to check it out. If you also use similar strategies for teaching, I’d love to hear about them!
-Amanda
Love the Extra Practice presentation. Really nice
Hi Amanda,
I really love how you have developed these mini presentations for your students. This is a great way to keep students engaged and also have something in which they can also reference at a later time. I am a big fan of using Canva in the classroom and find a lot of helpful resources on there to have students help to contribute. You could even have them do their own mini presentation as an activity in breakout rooms.
Best,
Michaella
This is a really cool idea! I feel like I have have trouble getting students to engage with certain concepts outside of the readings sometimes. What I mean by that is when I do a longer lecture they tend to check out and not listen the whole time. This is such a good way to engage them in a concept without losing their attention. This is such a smart way to get them to engage and go more deeply into concepts without it being too much
Hi Amanda,
I like how colorful your slides are–they look fun and inviting which is definitely a great way to engage the class. I’ve made a few slideshows for my class, but I designed the slides to look pretty much the same throughout the slideshow. I think your way of designing each slide is a more effective strategy because the slides will be more distinct and memorable. I’ll have to make some revisions to my slideshows!
“I find that students will engage with the key concepts more if I provide supplemental materials. One way I do this is through “mini-presentations” which I conduct during Zoom meets.”
I completely agree! I always have a mini-presentation/Google Slide ready for my Review Days since they understand the material a lot better with practice + examples.