Presentation standards p.2

Paraphrasing: put things into your own words. This is the best way to know that you understand something; it’s a way to prove to yourself that you can do more than just repeat and merely memorize.

Teach 3 Main Ideas: try to start your lesson with a brief hook (i.e., something provocative, or interesting, or mysterious, a story, etc.) that will draw your audience in. Then dedicate the rest of your lesson to three main ideas. Ensure that everything that you have to say is in the service of understanding these three main ideas. Here is a video on how to do this; here is a link on understanding concept-ideas and proposition-ideas; here is an older link on analytic ideas.

Use Sufficient Examples: make sure to use examples for each idea so that people can relate to the ideas in order to understand them.

Reading Vs. Using an Outline: don’t pull out a script or your text and read directly from it. Instead, make an outline or concept diagram that you can use to teach from but not “read” from. This will show that you know your material, and it will make the presentation more interesting for your audience.

Practice: try to run through your presentation at least once in order to see if you’re ready and to get better at your presentation – finding someone to listen to you while you give your presentation can be very helpful.

Flesh Out: Dig Deep & Spread Out: in your lesson and in your search for ideas in the text, emphasize the difficult, the strange, and the provocative. If what you are teaching isn’t difficult or interesting, then maybe avoid teaching it. Once you find these (3) ideas, flesh them out; really dig into their substance and try to make them as clear and relevant as possible.  “What does this idea really mean?  How can I explain it really well?  Which aspects of social life does it allow me to understand?” This might require spreading out by using supplemental texts, consulting the teacher, and/or Google.  For example, if you were trying to teach a lesson on socialization, then you could make an entire lesson on only Cooley’s concept of the looking glass self. But the book has less than one page on this concept. Therefore, you would have to consult alternative resources such as Wikipedia, library books, other textbooks, the instructor, etc.

Domesticate Common Sense: DO NOT teach merely from your common sense knowledge or opinion. Science is useful and relevant because common sense is not enough for understanding the events of life. Your texts are filled with ideas that many people put a lot of effort into developing – ideas which are often contrary to common sense or popular opinion. Common sense can help facilitate the lesson discussion, but it should be the point of departure not the point of arrival, not the destination.

Teach Don’t Preach: conversations on ethics and political strategies are practically unavoidable. What I’m asking of you is to dedicate, at least, the first 10 minutes to understanding the text, as opposed to preaching ethical or political strategies. I am not saying avoid them altogether; rather, I’m asking you to understand the sociological theory first, so that you can more meaningfully converse about ethics and politics – if you are inclined to do so.  When considering ethics and politics, after you have fleshed out the idea at hand, ask “If this is true, or if this is how things actually work, then what does this imply about how we should act in the world, about how we should treat each other (or how we should treat the group of persons mentioned or implied in the idea at hand)?”