Lesson Plan #2

Learning Objective:

 To reconsider what it means to have an effective oral/visual presentation. Form

this lesson, I really want to show to students how they can still be effective oral
communicators even if they do not “preform.” Some of the students in the course are
performing arts students, but many have a fear of public speaking. I would like to
push the students on their understanding of good communication in the classroom and
show them that a true passion for one’s topic can lead to great presentations.
 To prepare for their presentations mentally. I want the students to understand that
the fear of presenting in class often comes from under preparation. They will form
these views after reflecting on the times they have done a successful presentation.

Materials

 Students will need notebooks and a writing utensil in order to complete free writing
activity and personal notes.
 Students will also need to bring in ideas for their own presentations. They do not need to
be set in stone, but something to give the class an idea of what they will discuss.
 My own notes for the lesson plan including the free write prompt and set points that I
want to make during the activity:
o Free write prompt: Think about a time that you had a presentation that went
really well and one that you think you could have done better. What made these
successful or not so successful presentations?
o Presentation points: preparation/practice helps with timing and some practical
issues with their points, Good vs. bad visuals (too wordy, too many videos, and
unnecessary informational slides that are copied from Wikipedia), Being creative
with presenting their topics (no boring power points!), and movement around the
classroom/engagement with the class.

Time Estimate

 Around 30-40 minutes

Outline of Lesson

 I want to start the class with a free-write where I will ask the students to think about a
time they either had a great experience with public speaking or a performance or a time
where something went wrong (about 5-10 minutes). Then I will open this up for a class
discussion where I will be writing on the chalkboard a preliminary list of the dos and
don’ts of presentations (15 minutes). After this activity, I want to introduce transition into
a conversation about their presentations, where they are asked to give a short presentation
on anything they are interested in. The main thing I want to address in this lesson is that
these presentations have to “have a point.” We can relate some of the good or bad lesson
students have learned in the past and we can apply them to a more class generated set of
 standards. On the chalkboard I then want to have the class create a “master list” of dos
and don’ts, which I will then put up on elms after class (15 minute’s).

Assessment

 They will have to present their own work in the coming weeks, and their ability to
communicate their ideas effectively and in an engaging way will show how well they
learned form my lesson plan.

Rather than doing a power point presentation on this topic, I thought it would be a lot
more interesting to have the students form their own sort of checklist for this presentation.
Since these are upper classmen and many more are performers, I do not want to repeat things
that the students already know. Instead I almost want them to learn from one another. Certain
presentation horror stories will hopefully form a sort of community in our class that day, and
I very much want that to induce good discussion and thoughtful thinking. This will then
allow the students to directly apply this to their own presentations that they will be working
on in class. When creating this lesson plan one of the readings that influenced it was “An
Anatomy of Fear.” I think that so often, many students feel this distance from their instructor,
and what I mainly want to do with this lesson plan is to break away at that distance. Students
fear of presenting in class is very real, and I really hope that this lesson will allow students to
better understand that preparation and thoughtfulness will help to alleviate that fear when it
comes to their assignment.