Hi again. we've talked a lot about different types of skills and teaching. And one of the things that I think gets overlooked is the need to be proficient in oral presentation skills. It's one of the things that a lot of us don't like to do. So, I thought we'd spend some time in this module, just going through the basics. and hopefully that will help you and your learners, moving forward. So the things to think about today will be considering the variety of ways that health professionals communicate with one another, and with our patients. Defining important components of formal oral presentations, and that's basically what I'm going to focus on today, are sort of, formal oral presentations. And then I'm going to give you framework to incorporate formative assessment of presentation skills. Either for yourself or for someone who is one of your learners. So let's think about where we engage in sort of oral presentations. Well first and foremost, when we have seminars with one another or small group meetings when we are signing out to one another. But we also communicate over the phone, either through consults or through a junior resident calling a more senior resident, or even calling a patient on the phone. We also talk to team members. And how we communicate and orally present information is pretty critical, especially when there are a lot of hand-offs and a lot of us communicating with one another. Obviously, the most important level of communication is with our patients. And, many of us have elements in our curriculum that actually assess our learner's communication with the patient directly. in terms of empathy, clarity, etcetera. But we won't be talking about that today. And then, there's always communications in the operating room, with one another as surgeons with people in the room. And there's lots of standardization that goes along with making sure that you have check backs and making sure that you have pre-incision time outs, etcetera. So again, my point here is that communication is a really important skill, and one that I think we overlook. and we especially overlook the ideas of formal presentation of information. So, I personally remind my learners that verbal presentation skills are important. Not only for communication with the care team, but also for advocacy of our patients. When we are communicating with another team member, or trying to communicate with another entity that is helping to care for our patients. Something like the insurance company, or a pharmacy. it's helpful to be able to clearly state the issue, and what the concern is, and what the patient's needs are. The other thing, when you speak with an individual. If you sound hesitant, right? And you, you can kind of hear that in my voice. You can see it in body language. then people are actually concerned about, well, does she actually know the information? Is she confident with what she's, saying? And that actually can help, allay patient's fears. And help with, community building as well as trust sharing. the other important issue about verbally presenting, is that, in the health care arena much of what we do is verbal presentations. Whether that's on rounds or speaking with patients directly. And so, it's an opportunity for the learner for the student in a ra, in a situation, to show what they know. And we talked a little bit about transfer and hand-offs of patient care And, there's lots of literature around standardizing that type of communication. again, not something we're going to talk about. But there's so much, out in the literature now about communication. that I just wanted to make sure we raise our awareness about that. But again, what we're going to talk about today is public speaking. Something that we all very much love, not, okay? and something that can seem very, very off putting for all of us. So, when I'm talking about public speaking, what I mean are formal presentations, lectures, academic talks. Even oral examinations can be a public form of speaking. And so, what does a good talk have? Well, a good talk is going to have excellent context. Meaning, you know the audience that you're talking to. Who's listening, how many people there are. The content will be solid. You'll have clear visuals, so that people can understand what you're saying, or the information that you're trying to represent. You'll have a confident speaker, hopefully. And most importantly, you'll have a conscious audience. So, let's start with context first. What do I mean when I say context? So, I mean who's in your audience. So, in this case, while I'm talking with you, I have a general idea of who is in my audience. But, my, suspicion is that there are a lot more people than I think there are. And there are also a larger variety of individuals than I initially anticipated. and so my goal is to understand that there are lots of folks listening to this lecture. And making sure that I speak slowly and sort of explain the information well. If I'm in an audience of my colleagues and I'm presenting you know, case for this week's operation list, then I'm going to have a different way of speaking. And a different, sort of, languaging, and how I put things together. So, knowing the context of what you're talking about and who's in the audience, is really important. Whether or not you're in a formal or informal setting is important. And the other thing to really pay attention to, is whether or not a time limit has been set. So, often in oral presentations at formal meetings, you'll have a set time limit to speak. ANd so you need to make that you get all of the information you want to get, into that short time frame. We talked about the size of the audience. One thing I like to do especially if I'm public speaking, is I like to look at the room configuration. So if there's an opportunity for me to go into the room in the setting ahead of time to see how things are set up. Is there the right audio visual capabilities? Are there internet capabilities? again just to kind of get the lay of the land and help me feel a little more comfortable in that situation. So when we're talking content, remember that you as the speaker are in theory [LAUGH] and in truth the expert in the room. Because no one is talk, knows what you're going to say. And nobody has sort of done the research that you're doing and presenting, or no one has sort of put together the lecture that you put together. And so, you really are the expert, and so you want to come prepared. Another trick that many researchers know about is something called the extra slide. So you can anticipate questions that the audience may ask of you, sort of after your talk is finished. And then, when the questions is asked, you have this sort of extra slide ready to go. it's just sort of a, I want to say slick, or sort of, very polished way to present your information. You want your content to have a very clear organization and flow. Often, what I'll do is, I will outline what the content will be. Those of you who know about video productions, will talk about storyboarding. Or some way to sort of lay out what you want to talk about in a flow, in, in an organization, that makes sense for your learner, or your listener. You want to consider writing out the outline, so actually writing out the speech. But you never want to read it. because, all of us have been in a room, where somebody sits and looks down and is reading mechanically to a piece of paper. And that can really make everybody go to sleep quickly. So while I have outlines these lectures and have written them out, I'm actually not reading it specifically for you. Now the other piece, that makes a very effective public talk, often, is for people to have handouts, either to write notes as they're following. Or to have some sort of takeaway content. So if you're teaching about some method, or if there's information that you produced that someone might find helpful, so a list of antibiotics and specific uses against specific organisms. It may be helpful to hand that out after. again, making your oral presentation and your speech, that much more valuable for the listener. The other, challenge is to make sure that you have clear visuals. we've all heard of the, sort of, death by Power Point notion, and there's lots of presentation software out there. Most of us use Power Point, there's a variety of others some of them free some of them crowd sourced. but, for me,you know stick with what you know, and since I grew up in the era of power point that's kind of what I tend to use generally. Remember that color is important, and so, if you are in a large lecture. You want sort of a dark background, because that will project well in a large room. On a screen like this however, you'll notice we chose a lighter background, because it's somewhat easier on the eyes. We try to make sure that the colors contrast appropriately In terms of choosing a font, you want it to be readable, clear, without a lot of sort of flourish, and also make sure that the font is large enough to read. One thing that I was counseled on early in my career in speaking, is sort of how much time do you spend per slide. And, on average, people spend about at the most, a minute per slide sometimes a minute and a half, sometimes less. But, if you consider that you have about 50 slides in an hour long presentation. That will actually put you in the right space. So if I have a lecture come in, and I sort of help preview their slides, and I notice that there's 75 slides, and they're in a 50 minute time slot. Then we have a discussion about are there some of these slides that we can sort of pair down, or incorporate together. The other key thing is to unclutter the slide. It's very hard visually to watch, but what I've come to learn is that many of our students download the Power Points. I'm sure you've guys have done that as well, or create them into a PDF's and if you have space on the slide, often if it gets translated into a paper format. Or I've seen students import the slides into a different computer program and then, sort of, type notes right on the slide. it helps not only current listening and reading capabilities but then, future use for note taking. And then the crazy, I notion that many of us [LAUGH] would feel very uncomfortable with, is actually going without slides, or going with very few slides. and so you can sometimes just put an image up, that sort of triggers you what to talk about. But, not to actually have any words on the slide. So think back to the first slide in this unit, where I have pictures of people in a small group, and people talking on the phone. it's a little meta moment here. It also helps trigger your visual learners, as well. Because you can now remember that slide, remember the image, and then attach the cognitive information to it. Okay, now, I talked about how to make a slide. We've all sort of been in that situation where somebody made a slide, and it just didn't work. And so I just want to remind us of really how we should not make slides, right? So the first thing is to be really careful with color. Red doesn't project well. It can be very harsh. white also does not project well. And so I tend to avoid white, if I can or minimize it, obviously. The other thing to be really careful of is fonts that are tough to read or too small to read. And then the other thing that we've all lived through is a table with lots of numbers and data And usually the speaker will say, I know this is a really busy slide, but really what I want you to pay attention to is this right here. so my tip is that if this right here is what's important, then only include this right here. and then the other sort of big danger is, just because the computer program can do fun things, you probably shouldn't get too cute with animation. Because people will get distracted, by all the movement, and bells, and whistles. So, what does a confident speaker look like? In general, that person is going to appear calm. There's going to be issues of voice. So often, when we know things very well, we actually pick up our pace and we speak a little bit faster. Now, if you're watching me at two, two time speed, then I got really, really fast, almost like a chipmunk. But what many of the residents and students do, is, is sort of, go very fast. And so, as you speak more quickly, you lose your annunciation, and you can often lose your projection. So, it's a conscious effort to sort of slow down and speak clearly. The other thing that can be important is practice, practice, practice. So if you're someone who is nervous in front of groups, or more reserved then if, when it becomes an automaticity for you, it's less daunting. You also want to run through your timing again, because if you only have ten minutes to present, you don't want to be, you know. Eight minutes in and you haven't gotten to the meat of your discussion. You can also, before you give your talk get feedback on the content from a knowledgeable learner or a knowledgeable colleague. So if you're talking about how to change the oil in an engine, for instance, you may want to talk to somebody who knows about engines and changing oil. To make sure that your content is correct. You actually though, would also want to get feedback on your presentation style. The speed, the visuals that you learn, from someone who doesn't know how to change oil in their car. because that person also needs to learn from the information that you're presenting. So that will help you to know that your style is good, your speed's okay, your visuals are important, as well. Now, one of the things that I actually find most helpful when talking, is being able to engage the audience. So I'm able to see the audience. You're able to read body language or positions, etcetera. And so, truth be told for me speaking into a camera like this without getting that personal feedback can be a little bit daunting. So remember that speaking, public speaking, is a skill. And one thing that I like to do is to help our learners by breaking down the components of that skill. And I have, thought about breaking it down into, sort of, your verbal skill, your nonverbal communication, and then the content. And you want to try to provide formal opportunities for your learners, so that they can practice. One of the things that's really common is a lot of us professionals, have been put in teaching situations, or formal communication situations. But we've never been taught how to teach, or we haven't been taught sort of formal speaking skills. And so, if you can give a learner a chance to do research on, you know the physiology behind EKGs, and do a ten minute talk. Or you know, prepare a lecture for one another on a topic. then, not only do they have the opportunity of creating the learning piece, but then deliver the learning piece. And you can give useful feedback, describing their performance And their options for improvement. And so to that aim, I've actually taken a number of different types of rubrics, and condensed them into one. And what I have done is first said, okay, let's look at non-verbal skills, or something you can call poise. And you can look and see, you know, is someone comfortable when they're speaking? Do they seem confident? Do they make a connection with the people in the audience? And I've said, well gosh, you can give feedback over a five point scale with sort of five being the most relaxed, easy presentation, with minimal hesitation. Or, at this end, you can tell when people are completely uncomfortable, they lack flow to the presentation, they have frequent hesitations, or use spacers like etcetera. You can tell when people are confident, because they have an ease of movement, they have minimal tension in their bodies. Some people, you know, are just always going to have some tension, and they may be a little stiff, and that's because it's formal. And that's okay, that you may say, this is an acceptable performance. The connection piece is important, maintaining eye contact. You can depend on your notes and look down. But really those of us who say gosh, what makes a really good talk. Is, it's someone who has frequent eye contact, readily engages the audience and who you feel like your part of the situation. So the next piece that I break it down into is verbal skills. Are people clear? Is the volume okay? So, is it easy to understand? Or do you lose your audience's attention due to lack of clarity? Then these are things that you're not conscious of when you're actually doing the performance of talking. Because you're so busy thinking about, you know, do I have the right content, am I saying the right things. And there's a thousand people looking at me, I'm so nervous, I can't even think straight. And so getting an objective observer, to give you formative feedback about, you know, this is what this talk looked like. It can be very, very helpful. [INAUDIBLE] . The volume is important. You make sure that the person's easy to hear. That you don't overpower the audio equipment. We've all had the experience of being in a room where you can't hear anything. Or you're watching a video, and the, the sound is just terrible. Because there's feedback, or it's, the, it's not loud enough, etcetera. And this is the hardest part, right? This is the content. This is the meat of the issue. And so hopefully, the folks that you're giving feedback to, or receiving feedback from actually know about your content. At least enough to be able to say yes, you were well versed in your subject. You responded to questions with further explanations or clarifications, the organization made sense, it was generally clear, easy for the people to follow. And that your visuals were easy to read, and were actually additive to the presentation. So one of the things that can be really hard, is that if you give hand-outs or graphics that are distracting or too complicated. You may find that your listener is actually working so hard on the visual or the graphic, that they lose the content that you're trying to provide. So hopefully these are sort of helpful tips in terms of how to give oral presentations, and also how to help our learners succeed at oral presentations. the next couple of modules are going to cover a few more general aspects about instructional methods. And things to think about when we're teaching. And then, hopefully, moving forward, you'll be very comfortable switching into the different modalities that we'll use to actually teach individuals. See you soon.
