Week 7: The afternoon session focused on preparation for the SIP presentation. Below are my thoughts around 3 activities which I found particularly useful
What is an academic presentation?
In our group we felt that:
As an academic you are part of a (academic) community and you reference other people and put your own hypothesis into the context of previous research.
They are often analytical and factual and less emotional than for example the Ted Talk format
This final idea is a more general thought around giving presentations: You need to be clear that it is not about what you want to tell people but what you want your audience to be left with
Little Red Riding Hood
Great group working activity. All three groups approached this in different ways. Our approach was based around us as actors who had played the parts of the woodsman, the wolf, grandma and Little Red Riding Hood and talking to camera in a documentary type scenario. This seemed like a simple way to talk around the story rather than try to retell it in its entirety. I felt we worked together really well and democratically identified our approach. When we presented we each spoke for a similar amount of time which again felt very inclusive
1 minuet presentation
Less is more. What I found really liberating was that you really needed to strip away and focus on the ‘nitty gritty’. What I found freeing about this was that our 10 minutes SIP presentation always felt far too short and suddenly it now feels generous. While working at Queen Mary I attended a series of the three minute PhD presentations which must have had a similar aim.