How to improve your presentations

Alex Handrinos

Nobody teaches us how to teach.

Scholarship and teaching are one of the ACEM domains and fellows are expected to teach and provide education at a high level. Yet unless you have worked in an education role or completed further study, education in how to be an effective teacher is lacking.

My life changed when I attended a workshop on presentations by Ross Fisher, a paediatric surgeon in the UK, who has dedicated a large amount of his time in the pursuit of improving presentations. Much of his information is available at his website ffolliet.com and I strongly consider attending one of his workshops if you get a chance.

We have all delivered presentations that are boring. Presentations that lack a message or a learning point. Presentations that are simply inneffective in teaching, well, anything. I often give a talk on presentations in which we combine a little bit of educational theory into some practical tips on presentations based on my own experiences. I hope to give this talk to you sometime, but please approach me anytime and we can discuss.

Key messages

It’s all in the planning

  • Who is your target audience? Determine at what level to aim your education. For registrar teaching this should be junior FACEM level.

  • Focus on what the learner wants/needs to learn rather than what you want to teach them. Perhaps you need to ask them before you start to prepare.

  • Develop learning objectives before you write your presentation. The presentation can then be structured around these objectives.

  • You can’t possible cover the entirety of any topic in a short period of time - choose what is most important and just focus on that.

Timing is everything

  • TEDx talks go for 18 minutes because we can’t concentrate effectively beyond that.

  • If you have a 30 minute block, aim for 18 minutes of talking, which allows time for late starts, questions throughout and questions at the end.

  • Questions are often the most valuable part of a presentation.

  • Be polite to the subsequent speaker by not eating into their time.

  • Practice and time your presentation before you present it. Try to work out where key questions might be asked.

  • If you run out time, rushing through the rest of the talk is pointless. Nobody learns beyond this point. You are far better off stopping and summarising key points and then organising a future session.

Become the expert

  • Nonna’s are incredible skilled people.

  • Learn widely around your topic to be able to speak freely, with spontaneity around the structure that you have set.

  • Look at prescribed ACEM texts, relevant guidelines, commonly used FOAM resources so that you have reached that FACEM level prior to giving the talk.

Do not use text as a teleprompter

  • The brain cannot effectively concentrate on reading a slide and listening to somebody talk at the same time. Sorry, we are just not that advanced.

  • Reading is not teaching. It is pointless to transcribe the textbook onto slides. The learner can look this up themselves far more effectively if they wanted. However, if you have a large amount of text you want the learner to receive then give them a written handout, put something on this website, direct people to written resources. Powerpoint presentations are not a matrix-style data download unfortunately.

  • You don’t have to remember everything you are going to say. Have a run sheet when you present to refer to as needed.

  • Plan your learning activities around not having to read text. Can you find a way of demonstrating a key point another way?

Design matters

  • Slides and other media are there to support your message.

  • If something does not have to be on that slide, get rid of it. It is just taking up space and distracting from the key message.

  • Once you have created your media. Look at it again, critically, and delete half of it. Trust me on this one!

  • You should not be able to give your slides to another person and they be able to present the same talk, unless you have also given them the lesson/plan or running sheet.

  • Remember that some of the best talks are the ones when the projector fails and there is no media!

Don’t forget to seek feedback on your presentations as this is the best way we can improve our skills. I am always happy to help you in the planning phase of your talk and give feedback if it is wanted. All you need to do is ask.