This post originally appeared on Success At The Core blog, an organization that focuses on strengthening leadership teams’ ability to define quality instruction and advocate for it in their schools, as well as offering teachers practical methods to implement a shared vision of quality instruction in their classrooms. View Original >
As you unpack the Common Core Standards, one trend you will notice is that of Presentation. A valuable 21st century skill, we want our students to leave our classrooms with effective presentation skills. In addition, the Common Core literacy strategies are to be used across content areas. It is every teacher’s job to support students in learning valuable presentation skills, and assessing their work.
However, not every teacher has truly taught assessed presentations before. Many teachers use presentations as assessment tools, but often the focus is on the content and not the skills of presenting, or the assessment is muddled where both the skills and content are “lumped” into a category. As all teachers engage in teaching and assessing presentations, they must adhere to some best practices.
Effective Rubrics – As mentioned in this video, rubrics must be used throughout the process of teaching and assessing presentations. Students must use rubrics to internalize the language, and to self- and peer-assess their progress. These rubrics must be designed so that students understand what is expected of them and thus must be student-friendly in terms of language. Learning targets should be dis-aggregated so that science content, for example, is not confused with presentation skills.
Quality Summative Assessment – One of my favorite types of summative presentations is the Ignite presentation. In it, students have 10-15 slides that automatically transition after one minute or so. The slides have very few words, and are usually a series of images. Because of this, students must be well prepared to speak and appropriately pace their ideas, as they cannot rely on the PowerPoint slides as a “crutch.” This can lead to a quality presentation that avoids the monotone a traditional PowerPoint presentation can become.
Ongoing Formative Assessment – One shot is not enough: students must be given multiple opportunities to revise and reflect on their presentation skills. If students are to be successful at the Ignite presentation above, they must receive targeted feedback on many pieces of their presentations. Choice of images, speaking tone, pacing, volume; all of these must be formatively assessed multiple times before it is time for the summative presentation. This will ensure that the work students do is manageable and purposeful. Students learn to rely on the process of learning and avoid the fear of failing.
Obviously, there are further best practices teachers must adhere to when it comes to teaching 21st century skills, such as scaffolding and modeling. These best practices can also be transferred to other learning targets. Presentation skills must be taught and assessed to ensure career and college readiness for our students.
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