Many courses at Olin include team-based presentations as a final deliverable. These presentations are often delivered during class sessions. Altered class layouts, as well as the use of fully online and hybrid formats, will make in-class team-based presentations challenging to implement.
Recommendations
- Faculty should avoid including in-class presentations as a component of the course.
- Sanitation, masking and physical distancing will make in-class presentations impractical.
- Faculty should also re-evaluate the feasibility of using an entire synchronous in-class session for team-based presentations.
- It may be challenging for students to remain engaged in a class session through multiple presentations by their peers.
- If faculty want students to present live, they should consider spreading student presentations out across multiple synchronous class sessions.
- This would enable Q&A without prompting fatigue from an extended presentation session.
- In place of in-class presentations, faculty should consider asking students to create presentations that are delivered asynchronously (e.g., recorded video content).
- Asynchronous presentations could be posted publicly in Canvas for other class members to view.
- Using discussions in Canvas, students could be asked to engage in Q&A on one another’s presentations.
Pros & Cons
Pros
- Asking students to create recorded content in place of in-person presentations is one way for students to extend or develop new skills in digital content creation
- These skills are likely to be of increasing value in the years to come
Cons
- Eliminating live, synchronous presentations will limit the degree to which students are stretched and tested in their ability to “think on their feet” when responding to in-person questions
- Creating asynchronous videos requires them to use a different skillset than presenting in a live, in-person situation
- Eliminating live, synchronous presentations similarly limits the degree to which students grow in their comfort presenting in front of a live audience
- If synchronous presentations are spread across several class sessions, there is the possibility that students see evaluation of presentations as inequitable
- Those who present to the class first may be disadvantaged relative to those who present toward the end of a class session