Lesson 11, Part I: Their presentations

They had decided to do group presentations, and it worked out in groups of three. Actually, I had decided that group presentations were a good idea, and managed to persuade them. The main reason is that they will learn a lot from the process of preparing a presentation in a team. An added bonus is that group presentations will mean fewer presentations of higher quality. This is not my main reason, but I told them that I had to watch all the presentations, so I wanted them to be good!

I gave them some basic presentation guidelines, stressing that the key to a good presentation is good preparation. I also gave suggestions on making powerpoint slides, focusing on a reduction of cognitive load. For example they should use as few words as possible, preferably none. They should not use any sentences. They should chose one font and one or two colours and use that throughout. Rather than powerpoint, I recommended they use google's slides, which allows them to collaborate online on the same file.

They voted on the best topics out of the selection they had submitted, which included these:

• Why Japanese buildings!
• Nuclear fusion possibilities
• Ventilation by low energy systems
• Best way to make energy
• Lowering impact on environment
• Low energy buildings in hot areas
• Traditional ways to save energy
• Why should we save energy?

There was time left over, and they seemed interested in my house, so I told them about that.

See part II.