As we reimagine online education, let’s also reimagine speeches and reframe presentations as conversations. Speeches are stressful, whether in F2F, hybrid or Zoom environments and sometimes the format can increase the anxiety. Let’s collaborate and reimagine speeches as intentional opportunities to share stories and connect in meaningful and empowering ways.
As we reimagine online education, let’s also reimagine speeches and reframe presentations as conversations. Speeches are stressful, whether in F2F, hybrid or Zoom environments and sometimes the format can increase the anxiety. In many cases, we follow the same format and speech design that was used generations ago. True, the fundamentals of good communication, speaking with conviction and clarity in a tone and volume welcoming to a target audience that we connect with, have not changed yet how we deliver speeches and how we can deliver speeches should have changed significantly over the years. As we move to online education, virtual interviewing, and working from home as the normal rather than the unusual, let’s also reimagine and innovate how we teach our students to communicate and share their gifts, stories, and voices. Let’s seize this opportunity for innovation, to craft speeches more as presentations and conversations rather than performances, empower all students to share their knowledge and stories, and reduce speech anxiety by creating warm and welcoming spaces where all students can succeed. We will explore a variety of presentation opportunities, including virtual, team, research, and traditional, and examine ways to reduce the anxiety and increase the value of each. We will also uncover different formats, purposes and challenges.
We are going to co-create this experience together and rely on one another to actively engage and contribute. We will tell stories, share ideas, ask and answer questions, and explore some tools to help us empower our students. I will share some data I have gathered over the years about speech anxiety via a PowerPoint slidedeck and we can explore how that may shape how we conceptualize about our students’ experiences moving forward. We can share some Best Practices to reach oral communication outcomes that do not necessarily have to involve a student standing in front of a classroom or a Zoom camera by themselves and reading from their notes. We can do better than that and we can empower our students to do much better than that. I will share an open access website about speech anxiety that we can explore, and we can brainstorm other great sites and resources on our campuses and in our shared virtual spaces. We will engage in conversations about the power of words, reframing, and empathy. We will brainstorm ways to remove roadblocks. We will also discuss ways we can share our new insight with our students, colleagues, and campuses. We are going to reimagine speeches and in doing so we can redesign student empowerment and engagement. Please join us!