Effective Presentations
for Non-Trainers (Completed Module)

Course Demo | Goals | Learners | Instructional Strategies | Course Work | Reflection | References

Course Demo

http://www.surly-dog.com/Deploy4/Ted_Player.html

You will need a sound card, speakers or headphones, and a connection faster than dial up. It will take you about 30 minutes to go through the ENTIRE module, but you can get a good flavor of the demo in about 10 – 15 minutes.

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Describe the Goals

Presentations are an everyday part of life. We often think that the only people who really present are salespeople, trainers, or managers on the fast track. That is not the case – every time a person discusses information or tries to persuade another person, he/she is actually making a presentation. Therefore, it is extremely important to know how to organize your thoughts and communicate them effectively.

The demo/lesson discussed in this report is part of a 4-hour online course called Effective Presentations for Non-Trainers (EPNT). The purpose of the course as a whole is to train people on proper presentation techniques, as well as give them the tools to create the material of a presentation. Until the creation of this course, we only offered a version that focused on trainers’ needs (handling difficult participants, reaching all learners, etc.). It did not address the needs of the average employee. We also hold an event call Team Summit, in which partners from around the country gather to see what EchoStar is up to. Several departments are called upon to make presentations to these partners, and many of these people have little to no presentation experience (engineers, programmers, etc.).

The objectives for the course overall are:

The course is centered around a nine-step Creative Process that walks the participants through the creation of their presentation. The participants then learn about conquering their nerves and good presentation techniques. The module of focus for this report deals with adding transitions, as well as introductions and closings.

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Describe the Learners

As stated previously, the audience for this training is any employee who needs to improve his/her presentation abilities, both in creating and delivering the content. In this environment, the learner ranges from individual contributor to high level manager and we have several locations across the country, as well as overseas. We offer this course to corporate (“typical” office environment), DNS (dish installation in the field) and CSC (call centers).Because of the diversity of work environments, the audience demographic is quite broad (18 yrs and older).

EchoStar has a very strong corporate culture focusing on results, professionalism and frugality, so this must also be taken into account whenever training rolls out. Marrying the culture to the audience to the material is a critical step in the success of any training program.

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Describe the Instructional Strategies

Format: This course is designed as blended learning. The participants complete the online portion of the class and then attend a classroom session in which they deliver their presentation to a live audience and receive feedback from the instructor. I decided upon this format after observing our existing presentation course and interviewing both trainers and participants about the effectiveness of the course. Both the feedback and my observations led me to conclude that delivering the theory behind effective presentations in 4 hours, followed by 1.5 hours time to prepare a presentation and then delivering that presentation for the rest of the afternoon is both ineffective and quite stressful. The blended format allows the participants to structure their learning in a way that lets them digest the material at their own pace, create the presentation and practice it prior to the classroom setting.

Web-based: The online delivery of this course is web-based as opposed to CD/DVD-Rom. We use Oracle iLearning (Echo Learning System or ELM) for our LMS and all non-instructor led training is managed through this system. From our point of view, we like ELM because we can track all progress and evaluate training effectiveness through the system. From the learners’ point of view, ELM is useful because they can access the training at their convenience in an asynchronous format. Web delivery also allows employees in the field the same access to training as those in corporate.

Forums: This is the first course I have designed to actively use forums as part of the learning process, and really is a bit of an experiment. The participants are asked to log into forums at various points during the course: at the beginning, to introduce themselves to their fellow classmates; when it is time to select a topic; to post their presentation outlines; and to ask any questions of the instructor. I wanted to take a more socio-cultural approach to the course – to create a community of practice microcosm to help the participants feel that they are part of a group and are all experiencing the same things at the same time. This is partially to remove some of the stress that presenting often causes, but it is also an attempt to create the ‘ambient culture’ that drives true learning (Brown, Collins, and Duguid).

“Collaboration and discourse with other members of the community — the social construction of knowledge — play a major role in learning” (Grabinger), and I believe that participants will help each other solidify what they learn in the online course, and also help one another create the class norms – how much posting is too much, what topics are acceptable for presenting, etc. The forums also give the instructor a chance to observe the online learning as it happens, stepping in when necessary, or simply validating a thought. It is also a good way for the instructor to begin building the foundation of trust and credibility necessary for giving feedback.

Storytelling: This course is essentially the story of Justin, an up-and-coming employee. His boss decides to help develop Justin’s skills by asking him to make a presentation to the staff at the next meeting, at which a vice president will be present. The learner follows Justin through his process of creating the presentation and preparing for the delivery. Every time Justin stops to complete one of the steps in the Creative Process, the learner does the same. Every time Justin is stuck and needs to ask a co-worker for advice, the learner is there as well. Justin and his co-workers act as an on-screen coach, or pedagogical agent, for the learner. Studies by Moreno , Mayer, Spires and Lester (2001), as well as those by Atkinson (2002) show that students who interacted with a pedagogical agent performed better than those who did not (Colvin Clark, Mayer). The storytelling aspect of the training serves as that agent, though somewhat more indirectly than an interactive coach. It is more of the Roger Schank approach, using stories to help people remember what they’ve learned.

Animations/Voice-overs/Multimedia: Ruth Colvin Clark and Richard E. Myer advocate the use of words and graphics over the use of words alone (2002). In a course explaining how to use a bicycle pump, ten separate comparisons were done between the course with just words and the course with words and graphics. In all ten comparisons, students who received the multimedia lesson performed better than those receiving the course with only words (Colvin Clark, Myer, 2002). The multimedia in this course is designed to better engage audio and visual learners. To comply with Section 508, the text is shown on the screen along with the narration. This particular module also uses streaming video (first one is on slide 25) to give good and bad examples of openings and closings to learners, so proper techniques are modeled rather than described. [NOTE: The streaming video slides take slightly longer to load due to the site on which I’ve hosted the demo. In the intranet environment, this has not been an issue.]

Workbook: This course has a participant workbook which the learners print out in the introduction module. It is designed to be very interactive – with fill in the blanks, listing of techniques, and exercises which help the learners build their presentation. Online learning can be extremely passive – even courses designed with plenty of questions, games, etc. The purpose of the workbook is two-fold – it gives the learners a final tangible reference guide, and it also helps engage the learners throughout the course. This is particularly helpful to kinesthetic learners who need to take notes in order to feel as though they are learning something. At all times, the workbook drives the learning. You will notice on certain pages an icon that indicates the learner should write something in the workbook.

Learning Interactions: In studies conducted by Schnackenberg, Sullivan, Leader and Jones in 1998, it was found that any eLearning designed with more practice increased learning for both higher- and lower-ability learners (Colvin Clark, Myer, 2002). Therefore, throughout this course, the learner engages in multiple learning interaction types – games (drag and drop, Tetris, etc), multiple choice/true-false questions, and multiple workbook exercises. As conceded by Schnackenberg, et al, the time of the course increases due to these learning interactions, but the return makes the extra time worth it. You will notice this as you go through the module – at 64 pages, it’s the longest of the course, but it uses the most interaction and multimedia.

The interactions planned throughout this course are similar in format to interactions used in other eLearning courses at the company. We (all training departments) purposefully build in familiarity of format and navigation. Earlier courses helped build the schema for learning, and now participants are able to concentrate on the course rather than the navigation because they already know what to expect.

This particular module contains the following interactions:

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Utilization of Course Work and Learning Processes

Throughout this course, we have looked at different ways to engage the learner and the reasons behind them. I took many of the theories and processes we discussed and incorporated them into the instructional design of this course demo. First and foremost, the decision to incorporate online learning for this course was made using many of the arguments put forth in our position papers. Cost, ability to reach a widespread audience, learning effectiveness, etc., are all reasons why online learning was chosen.

The socio-cultural instructional design unit was particularly pertinent to the creation of this demo because it gave a name and theory behind methods I typically use when designing a course. SD design is particularly effective when dealing with soft-skills topics, such as leadership, management and, naturally, presentation skills. As described above, I selected SD design elements to help create the community of practice that would help acculturate the learner into the corporate environment of designing and delivering a presentation. This helps acculturate the learner into the course environment as well, allowing the learners to set their own guidelines in posting, and to learn from one another’s observations, struggles and ideas.

Other processes include the use of multimedia (see above for description) and some UDL. I say “some” because it is very difficult in our environment to account for every possible learning disability and special need. However, the course offers a variety of ways to demonstrate understanding and applicability (workbook, forum posting, multiple choice/true-false assessments and knowledge checks, live presentation, etc.). All of the text is displayed on the screen, except for the streaming video. Should a learner require the text, it is a simple matter to convert the course into a PowerPoint presentation that we can then email to the learner. This course also takes into account a multitude of learning style preferences and attempts to follow the best practices of eLearning design.

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Reflection

One of the unique aspects of designing and developing this course is the fact that it truly was a team effort. While I designed, wrote and “mocked up” the course in PowerPoint, the finished product was transferred to its current state by a team of developers. One developer was in charge of converting the PowerPoint to Articulate, another in charge of voice-over recording, another person in charge of shooting the video and converting it to digital streaming, yet another in charge of taking still photos, etc. I remained actively involved throughout the process, giving final approval for quality, casting, vocal recording, etc.

This approach has its benefits and drawbacks. The benefits include the fact that I am able to concentrate on the effectiveness of the course in terms of learning, evaluating how well the participants will be able to understand what’s going on in the course and even more importantly, how well they will retain what they learn and be able to apply it. I am also able to work on more than one project at a time. For example, during the technical development stage of this project, I had 3 other courses in the design phase, which is not uncommon in the corporate environment. Additionally, I am not required to be an expert in all of the technologies used to put the course together. I have a good understanding of all applications used, but I would not have been able to bring this entire 4 hour online course together by myself. However, it was useful to have that application understanding when discussing limitations or edits to the course development, so I would certainly recommend that any developer gain at least some competence with the technologies being used in their company.

Some of the drawbacks for this arrangement include having to give up some control on animations, formatting and other media application. While I can give notes on specific aspects and mock up how I want the course to look and animate, program limitations often require the developers to change timelines and layout – which can be fairly frustrating. Also, not all of the developers have instructional design backgrounds (though some do). This can result in the removal of a key learning element, requiring further notes and often a conversation justifying learning over ease of development. I am also at the mercy of the developers in terms of time to launch. They, too, are working on multiple projects, so mine are sometimes pushed back in favor of more pressing deadlines. This is simply a reality of the environment, so I try not to take it personally.

I simply wish to stress the fact that an instructional designer need not be a “jack-of-all-trades” when it comes to creating learning, particularly in an online or other technological format. It is possible to partner with non-designers to bring your course to life. It’s an interesting way to work and allows you to have a hand in all aspects without having to take the time to develop it on your own. Ultimately, the learners benefit from this approach because there are several sets of eyes evaluating the writing and flow of the course, and the observations made by other developers typically improve the overall effectiveness. Time to launch is greatly reduced and overall it is a more efficient way to create online learning.

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References

Brown, J. S; Collins, A; and Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the Culture          of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.

Colvin Clark, Robin and Mayer, Richard E. (2002). e-Learning and the science of          instruction. San Francisco , CA : Pfeiffer.

Grabinger, Scott. (2004). Traditional vs. Socio-Cultural Instructional Design. ALT-C         Research Proceedings, Blue Skies and Pragmatism.

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