lesson 1 making an effective presentation

How to make a great presentation

Stressed about an upcoming presentation? These talks are full of helpful tips on how to get up in front of an audience and make a lasting impression.

The secret structure of great talks

The beauty of data visualization

TED's secret to great public speaking

How to speak so that people want to listen

How great leaders inspire action

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Blog Beginner Guides How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

How To Make a Good Presentation [A Complete Guide]

Written by: Krystle Wong Jul 20, 2023

A top-notch presentation possesses the power to drive action. From winning stakeholders over and conveying a powerful message to securing funding — your secret weapon lies within the realm of creating an effective presentation .  

Being an excellent presenter isn’t confined to the boardroom. Whether you’re delivering a presentation at work, pursuing an academic career, involved in a non-profit organization or even a student, nailing the presentation game is a game-changer.

In this article, I’ll cover the top qualities of compelling presentations and walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to give a good presentation. Here’s a little tip to kick things off: for a headstart, check out Venngage’s collection of free presentation templates . They are fully customizable, and the best part is you don’t need professional design skills to make them shine!

These valuable presentation tips cater to individuals from diverse professional backgrounds, encompassing business professionals, sales and marketing teams, educators, trainers, students, researchers, non-profit organizations, public speakers and presenters. 

No matter your field or role, these tips for presenting will equip you with the skills to deliver effective presentations that leave a lasting impression on any audience.

Click to jump ahead:

What are the 10 qualities of a good presentation?

Step-by-step guide on how to prepare an effective presentation, 9 effective techniques to deliver a memorable presentation, faqs on making a good presentation, how to create a presentation with venngage in 5 steps.

When it comes to giving an engaging presentation that leaves a lasting impression, it’s not just about the content — it’s also about how you deliver it. Wondering what makes a good presentation? Well, the best presentations I’ve seen consistently exhibit these 10 qualities:

1. Clear structure

No one likes to get lost in a maze of information. Organize your thoughts into a logical flow, complete with an introduction, main points and a solid conclusion. A structured presentation helps your audience follow along effortlessly, leaving them with a sense of satisfaction at the end.

Regardless of your presentation style , a quality presentation starts with a clear roadmap. Browse through Venngage’s template library and select a presentation template that aligns with your content and presentation goals. Here’s a good presentation example template with a logical layout that includes sections for the introduction, main points, supporting information and a conclusion: 

2. Engaging opening

Hook your audience right from the start with an attention-grabbing statement, a fascinating question or maybe even a captivating anecdote. Set the stage for a killer presentation!

The opening moments of your presentation hold immense power – check out these 15 ways to start a presentation to set the stage and captivate your audience.

3. Relevant content

Make sure your content aligns with their interests and needs. Your audience is there for a reason, and that’s to get valuable insights. Avoid fluff and get straight to the point, your audience will be genuinely excited.

4. Effective visual aids

Picture this: a slide with walls of text and tiny charts, yawn! Visual aids should be just that—aiding your presentation. Opt for clear and visually appealing slides, engaging images and informative charts that add value and help reinforce your message.

With Venngage, visualizing data takes no effort at all. You can import data from CSV or Google Sheets seamlessly and create stunning charts, graphs and icon stories effortlessly to showcase your data in a captivating and impactful way.

5. Clear and concise communication

Keep your language simple, and avoid jargon or complicated terms. Communicate your ideas clearly, so your audience can easily grasp and retain the information being conveyed. This can prevent confusion and enhance the overall effectiveness of the message. 

6. Engaging delivery

Spice up your presentation with a sprinkle of enthusiasm! Maintain eye contact, use expressive gestures and vary your tone of voice to keep your audience glued to the edge of their seats. A touch of charisma goes a long way!

7. Interaction and audience engagement

Turn your presentation into an interactive experience — encourage questions, foster discussions and maybe even throw in a fun activity. Engaged audiences are more likely to remember and embrace your message.

Transform your slides into an interactive presentation with Venngage’s dynamic features like pop-ups, clickable icons and animated elements. Engage your audience with interactive content that lets them explore and interact with your presentation for a truly immersive experience.

8. Effective storytelling

Who doesn’t love a good story? Weaving relevant anecdotes, case studies or even a personal story into your presentation can captivate your audience and create a lasting impact. Stories build connections and make your message memorable.

A great presentation background is also essential as it sets the tone, creates visual interest and reinforces your message. Enhance the overall aesthetics of your presentation with these 15 presentation background examples and captivate your audience’s attention.

9. Well-timed pacing

Pace your presentation thoughtfully with well-designed presentation slides, neither rushing through nor dragging it out. Respect your audience’s time and ensure you cover all the essential points without losing their interest.

10. Strong conclusion

Last impressions linger! Summarize your main points and leave your audience with a clear takeaway. End your presentation with a bang , a call to action or an inspiring thought that resonates long after the conclusion.

In-person presentations aside, acing a virtual presentation is of paramount importance in today’s digital world. Check out this guide to learn how you can adapt your in-person presentations into virtual presentations . 

Preparing an effective presentation starts with laying a strong foundation that goes beyond just creating slides and notes. One of the quickest and best ways to make a presentation would be with the help of a good presentation software . 

Otherwise, let me walk you to how to prepare for a presentation step by step and unlock the secrets of crafting a professional presentation that sets you apart.

1. Understand the audience and their needs

Before you dive into preparing your masterpiece, take a moment to get to know your target audience. Tailor your presentation to meet their needs and expectations , and you’ll have them hooked from the start!

2. Conduct thorough research on the topic

Time to hit the books (or the internet)! Don’t skimp on the research with your presentation materials — dive deep into the subject matter and gather valuable insights . The more you know, the more confident you’ll feel in delivering your presentation.

3. Organize the content with a clear structure

No one wants to stumble through a chaotic mess of information. Outline your presentation with a clear and logical flow. Start with a captivating introduction, follow up with main points that build on each other and wrap it up with a powerful conclusion that leaves a lasting impression.

Delivering an effective business presentation hinges on captivating your audience, and Venngage’s professionally designed business presentation templates are tailor-made for this purpose. With thoughtfully structured layouts, these templates enhance your message’s clarity and coherence, ensuring a memorable and engaging experience for your audience members.

Don’t want to build your presentation layout from scratch? pick from these 5 foolproof presentation layout ideas that won’t go wrong. 

4. Develop visually appealing and supportive visual aids

Spice up your presentation with eye-catching visuals! Create slides that complement your message, not overshadow it. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words, but that doesn’t mean you need to overload your slides with text.

Well-chosen designs create a cohesive and professional look, capturing your audience’s attention and enhancing the overall effectiveness of your message. Here’s a list of carefully curated PowerPoint presentation templates and great background graphics that will significantly influence the visual appeal and engagement of your presentation.

5. Practice, practice and practice

Practice makes perfect — rehearse your presentation and arrive early to your presentation to help overcome stage fright. Familiarity with your material will boost your presentation skills and help you handle curveballs with ease.

6. Seek feedback and make necessary adjustments

Don’t be afraid to ask for help and seek feedback from friends and colleagues. Constructive criticism can help you identify blind spots and fine-tune your presentation to perfection.

With Venngage’s real-time collaboration feature , receiving feedback and editing your presentation is a seamless process. Group members can access and work on the presentation simultaneously and edit content side by side in real-time. Changes will be reflected immediately to the entire team, promoting seamless teamwork.

7. Prepare for potential technical or logistical issues

Prepare for the unexpected by checking your equipment, internet connection and any other potential hiccups. If you’re worried that you’ll miss out on any important points, you could always have note cards prepared. Remember to remain focused and rehearse potential answers to anticipated questions.

8. Fine-tune and polish your presentation

As the big day approaches, give your presentation one last shine. Review your talking points, practice how to present a presentation and make any final tweaks. Deep breaths — you’re on the brink of delivering a successful presentation!

In competitive environments, persuasive presentations set individuals and organizations apart. To brush up on your presentation skills, read these guides on how to make a persuasive presentation and tips to presenting effectively . 

Whether you’re an experienced presenter or a novice, the right techniques will let your presentation skills soar to new heights!

From public speaking hacks to interactive elements and storytelling prowess, these 9 effective presentation techniques will empower you to leave a lasting impression on your audience and make your presentations unforgettable.

1. Confidence and positive body language

Positive body language instantly captivates your audience, making them believe in your message as much as you do. Strengthen your stage presence and own that stage like it’s your second home! Stand tall, shoulders back and exude confidence. 

2. Eye contact with the audience

Break down that invisible barrier and connect with your audience through their eyes. Maintaining eye contact when giving a presentation builds trust and shows that you’re present and engaged with them.

3. Effective use of hand gestures and movement

A little movement goes a long way! Emphasize key points with purposeful gestures and don’t be afraid to walk around the stage. Your energy will be contagious!

4. Utilize storytelling techniques

Weave the magic of storytelling into your presentation. Share relatable anecdotes, inspiring success stories or even personal experiences that tug at the heartstrings of your audience. Adjust your pitch, pace and volume to match the emotions and intensity of the story. Varying your speaking voice adds depth and enhances your stage presence.

5. Incorporate multimedia elements

Spice up your presentation with a dash of visual pizzazz! Use slides, images and video clips to add depth and clarity to your message. Just remember, less is more—don’t overwhelm them with information overload. 

Turn your presentations into an interactive party! Involve your audience with questions, polls or group activities. When they actively participate, they become invested in your presentation’s success. Bring your design to life with animated elements. Venngage allows you to apply animations to icons, images and text to create dynamic and engaging visual content.

6. Utilize humor strategically

Laughter is the best medicine—and a fantastic presentation enhancer! A well-placed joke or lighthearted moment can break the ice and create a warm atmosphere , making your audience more receptive to your message.

7. Practice active listening and respond to feedback

Be attentive to your audience’s reactions and feedback. If they have questions or concerns, address them with genuine interest and respect. Your responsiveness builds rapport and shows that you genuinely care about their experience.

8. Apply the 10-20-30 rule

Apply the 10-20-30 presentation rule and keep it short, sweet and impactful! Stick to ten slides, deliver your presentation within 20 minutes and use a 30-point font to ensure clarity and focus. Less is more, and your audience will thank you for it!

9. Implement the 5-5-5 rule

Simplicity is key. Limit each slide to five bullet points, with only five words per bullet point and allow each slide to remain visible for about five seconds. This rule keeps your presentation concise and prevents information overload.

Simple presentations are more engaging because they are easier to follow. Summarize your presentations and keep them simple with Venngage’s gallery of simple presentation templates and ensure that your message is delivered effectively across your audience.

1. How to start a presentation?

To kick off your presentation effectively, begin with an attention-grabbing statement or a powerful quote. Introduce yourself, establish credibility and clearly state the purpose and relevance of your presentation.

2. How to end a presentation?

For a strong conclusion, summarize your talking points and key takeaways. End with a compelling call to action or a thought-provoking question and remember to thank your audience and invite any final questions or interactions.

3. How to make a presentation interactive?

To make your presentation interactive, encourage questions and discussion throughout your talk. Utilize multimedia elements like videos or images and consider including polls, quizzes or group activities to actively involve your audience.

In need of inspiration for your next presentation? I’ve got your back! Pick from these 120+ presentation ideas, topics and examples to get started. 

Creating a stunning presentation with Venngage is a breeze with our user-friendly drag-and-drop editor and professionally designed templates for all your communication needs. 

Here’s how to make a presentation in just 5 simple steps with the help of Venngage:

Step 1: Sign up for Venngage for free using your email, Gmail or Facebook account or simply log in to access your account. 

Step 2: Pick a design from our selection of free presentation templates (they’re all created by our expert in-house designers).

Step 3: Make the template your own by customizing it to fit your content and branding. With Venngage’s intuitive drag-and-drop editor, you can easily modify text, change colors and adjust the layout to create a unique and eye-catching design.

Step 4: Elevate your presentation by incorporating captivating visuals. You can upload your images or choose from Venngage’s vast library of high-quality photos, icons and illustrations. 

Step 5: Upgrade to a premium or business account to export your presentation in PDF and print it for in-person presentations or share it digitally for free!

By following these five simple steps, you’ll have a professionally designed and visually engaging presentation ready in no time. With Venngage’s user-friendly platform, your presentation is sure to make a lasting impression. So, let your creativity flow and get ready to shine in your next presentation!

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14 effective presentation tips to impress your audience

Get your team on prezi – watch this on demand video.

Anete Ezera July 15, 2022

An effective presentation can communicate key ideas and opinions, save time, and contribute to your overall success as a business, but good presentation skills don’t come naturally to everyone. In this blog post, you’ll find 14 effective presentation tips you can implement in your next presentation to make it a success. 

Whether you’re preparing for an important presentation at work or school, or you’re looking for ways to generally improve your presentation skills, you’ll find these presentation tips useful. We’ve gathered a list to help you impress your audience from the get-go. You’ll find tips for creating and presenting your slides, talking in front of an audience, and other effective presentation techniques to help you stand out. 

Most common presentation mistakes

Before we list our top effective presentation tips, let’s explore the most common presentation mistakes. If you’ve made one or more mistakes in this list, you’re not alone. Most people have made at least one mistake. However, what’s important is to be aware of these errors and try avoiding them next time.

#1 A poor start

One of the most common mistakes people make is undermining the importance of the first few minutes or seconds of their presentation. 

Let’s say you’ve practiced your key talking points meticulously and gone over your slides a million times, but when you’re in the spotlight and need to say your first line, do you know exactly what to say to wow the audience? 

The start of your presentation is crucial. Not only because how you start sets the tone for the rest of your presentation, but also because people generally require around 8 seconds to decide whether they find the subject interesting enough to keep listening. Starting your presentation with a captivating intro is even more important than you think. To ensure you start off right, read our guide on how to start your presentation . 

#2 Lack of preparation

Yes, even though it’s clear that you should prepare before giving a presentation, it’s still a common mistake amongst presenters. Preparing content and talking points is an obvious start, but there are other steps that you might be overlooking.

Before you even join a meeting or walk into a room where you’re going to present, consider the technical requirements and get familiar with the equipment. If you’re presenting online, make sure to test-run your presentation and the visual aids you’re going to use. The last thing you want is a broken video link, poor audio, or a weak connection when you’re presenting. 

Also, consider the questions your audience might want to ask you about the topic. Think about how you’d answer those questions, or do even further research to really impress the audience with your answers. 

Explore other ways to prepare for a presentation to feel even more confident when presenting.

#3 Losing track of time

It’s great to feel passionate about your topic. However, you’ll have to consider your audience’s level of interest and knowledge. Some details might seem fascinating to you, and you’d like to talk about them for hours, but for your audience, too much information will drain their energy and lose their attention. 

Therefore, make sure to keep track of time. Also, consider your audience’s interests. A concise presentation is always better than a long one with a ton of information. Plus, you’ll have a higher chance of keeping your audience’s attention throughout the presentation. 

Effective presentation tips

Now that we’ve looked at some of the most common presentation mistakes – let’s dive into effective presentation tips that’ll help you excel in future presentations. 

#1 Tell a story

Stories connect, inspire, and empower people. Telling a story can entice action, help understand an idea, and make people feel connected to the storyteller. It’s also one of the most effective presentation tips. A study by organizational psychologist Peg Neuhauser found that a well-told story is easier to remember than facts, which makes it a highly effective learning technique. 

With that in mind, telling a story when you’re presenting can engage your audience and make it a more memorable experience. You can either share a personal story or a historical event, just make sure to have a clear connection between the story and the topic you’re presenting. 

#2 Work on your body language

Body language can make a huge difference in how your presentation is perceived. It’s one of the presentation tips you definitely shouldn’t overlook. 

Body language says a lot about a person’s confidence level, emotions, state of mind, and even credibility. For the audience, it’s a way to understand what the person is saying and how interested they are in the topic. 

Therefore, work on your body language to better convey the message you’re trying to communicate. Practice in front of a mirror before your presentation and be conscious of your hand gestures and facial expressions. 

#3 Understand your audience

Before crafting your presentation, you must know who you’re speaking to. Understanding the interests, demographics, professional background, and other valuable information of your audience is crucial in making your speech successful. 

If you’re speaking at an event, contact the organizers to get more information about other speakers and the audience. If you’re presenting at work, you may already know your audience fairly well. Use this information to your advantage and create content you know they’ll resonate with.

#4 Use high-quality visuals

What’s one of the most effective presentation techniques? Use of visuals. They play a crucial role in your presentation. However, only high-quality visuals will make a good impression and effectively communicate your message. Use high-quality visuals like images, videos, graphs, maps, and others to really land your point. 

Using visuals is a great way to convey your ideas as they’re easier to process than text. If you’re not sure where to find great visuals, check out our blog post on presentation visuals for five free resources.

P.S. the Prezi library holds a variety of images, videos, GIFs, stickers, and other visuals, including different charts and maps to spice up your presentation. It’s all available in your dashboard .

#5 Use data visualizations

Do you want to showcase statistics or other datasets in your presentation? Use data visualizations to make your data stand out and impress your audience. 

There’s nothing more boring than a bunch of data presented in a flat way. If you want to tell a story with your data, use interactive infographics or slides enriched with eye-catching visuals. Showcasing data will make your ideas appear more trustworthy and credible. 

Prezi Design offers a range of templates to choose from. You can start creating data visualizations from scratch or choose a template and edit the data there. 

#6 Make it engaging with interactive elements

It’s not easy to deliver an engaging presentation. People can easily get distracted or try to multitask, especially in the virtual environment. Sometimes, it’s difficult to focus on the speaker and the written text. Other times, the content just isn’t impressive enough to hold the audience’s attention. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

You can make your presentation more engaging for everyone by including interactive content like graphs and charts. With interactive data visualizations, you’ll make the data discovery process more engaging and exciting for your audience. 

Your audience will be able to hover over data points and click on certain icons or datasets to discover information on their own. Interactive visualizations will make the presentation more memorable and impressive. 

As you can see in the example below, you can discover different data by engaging with the infographic. 

#7 Stay consistent with fonts and color styles

You want your presentation to look visually appealing and highlight essential information. To make that happen, stay consistent with font styles and color schemes throughout your presentation. 

Use one or two fonts max to make the text easy to read and understand. Also, use a carefully selected color scheme that’s not too distracting. If you’re using Prezi Design, you can easily copy and paste styles by right-clicking on your data visualizations and selecting “copy styles.” This makes it easier to stay consistent and saves time when picking matching colors. 

#8 Structure your presentation properly

Before creating your presentation, think about its structure. What’s the main idea you want to convey? Use that as your starting point, and only include information that adds value to the narrative. 

Plan out the first topics carefully to properly introduce your argument. Add the essential information in the middle part of your presentation. Lastly, close your presentation with a summary of the main points and leave your audience with an afterthought. Also, plan when you’re taking questions and for how long. 

For more insight, watch this tutorial on how to structure your presentation:

#9 Practice your public speaking skills

Public speaking may not be your forte, but you can get better with practice. Don’t decline a great opportunity to share your ideas with a larger audience just because you feel nervous speaking in front of a group of people. 

One of the best ways to improve your public speaking skills is to practice in front of your family or friends – people you feel comfortable with. Also, focus on the topic you’re presenting and get excited about the idea you want to convey. This way you’ll appear more confident and feel less nervous about public speaking. 

Explore other public speaking tips from Jessica Chen, the founder, and CEO of Soulcast Media: 

#10 Show your slides next to you on-screen

If you’re presenting on Zoom or in a virtual meeting , think twice before you share your screen. The days of hiding behind slides are over. People want to see and connect with other people, not sit through another run-of-the-mill screen share. To do that, use Prezi Video to showcase all your content right next to you in your video feed. 

As a result, your presentation will look more engaging than a traditional virtual presentation . Also, your audience will have the chance to read your body language and follow along with what you’re saying even better. 

If you already have your slides prepared, don’t worry – you can easily integrate them into Prezi. 

See Prezi Video in action and check out our video templates to get started.

#11 Calm down before presenting

Being in front of an audience can feel nerve-racking. However, there are ways to calm down before presenting that will make you feel more centered and confident. The last thing you want is all your hard work to go to waste just because of stress. 

Try breathing exercises or a five-minute guided meditation before presenting. The trick is to remove all distractions and focus on the present moment so you’re not overthinking right before starting your presentation. Also, be fully prepared and know exactly what to say and when which will help you feel more collected. If you want to discover other ways to feel and look more confident, read how not to be nervous before a presentation . 

#12 Use transitions and animations 

Add movement to your slides with transitions and animations. You’ll make your presentation more visually appealing and engaging. However, be careful not to overwhelm your audience with your choice of transitions and animations. 

Choose a transition that matches your presentation visually and use it throughout your presentation. Consider what animations will be relevant to your audience and select a few to add to your slides. Don’t overdo it. Keep the focus on the message you’re trying to convey, and use animations to only support that message. 

#13 Be enthusiastic 

When you’re in a room with a positive and enthusiastic person, you can’t help but feel uplifted as well. High-energy people have this effect on others. Most importantly, a lot of people tend to mimic people’s behavior and mirror their energy when they feel a connection or relate to them. That’s called the chameleon effect . 

When you’re presenting, you want your audience to feel curious about what you’re presenting. You may also want to leave your audience feeling uplifted, interested to know more, or inspired. To have that effect on others, try to convey those emotions when presenting. Practice your speech, slow down your narration at times, or take a pause after you’ve delivered a statement, and use different presentation techniques to present your project and really drive your points home. 

#14 End your presentation in a memorable way

The first few minutes of your presentation are crucial for captivating your audience’s attention. However, don’t underestimate the importance of ending your presentation as powerfully as you started it. 

The way you end your presentation will play a crucial part in how your audience will remember it. You want to make a memorable impression by closing your presentation with a summarizing statement, a rhetorical question, a call to action, or another impactful way. Discover 10 ways you can end your presentation in our guide.  

There are a lot of factors to consider when creating and delivering a presentation. You want your slides to look professional and visually appealing while conveying your main points. You also want to look and sound confident even if you’re nervous about public speaking. Whatever your concerns may be, remember that preparation is essential. Practice and dedication are the keys to giving a successful presentation . Make sure to follow these effective presentation tips to excel in your future presentations. If you’re interested in creating a captivating presentation with Prezi, contact us to learn more or try it for free . 

Elevating presentations with Prezi AI

Embrace the innovation of Prezi to bring your presentations to life. With its unique platform, Prezi AI offers more than just visually appealing templates; it provides an immersive narrative experience, engaging your audience with a story-driven approach. By integrating Prezi AI , our platform’s capabilities are further enhanced, offering intelligent design suggestions and optimizing content layouts to ensure your presentations are not only beautiful but impactful. This integration is a perfect example of effective presentation techniques in action, using technology to create a more engaging presentation.

Interactive elements: transforming passive listening into active engagement

Prezi revolutionizes the way information is presented by incorporating interactive elements that invite audience participation. With Prezi AI, these features become even more accessible, suggesting ways to make your presentation more engaging through clickable areas, zoomable images, and dynamic visualizations. This level of interaction encourages exploration, making your message more memorable and transforming a standard presentation into an effective presentation.

Adding a personal touch in digital presentation with video

Prezi Video stands out by seamlessly integrating your content alongside your video feed, bridging the gap between traditional presentations and personal engagement. This feature is crucial for those looking to follow presentation tips that emphasize the importance of connecting with your audience on a more personal level. Prezi AI enhances this experience, ensuring your content is displayed in the most effective way possible, making your virtual presentations feel as though you’re directly conversing with your audience.

Mastering presentation artistry with Prezi

The journey to becoming a skilled presenter involves continuously refining your approach and embracing tools that elevate your ability to communicate effectively. Prezi, enriched with Prezi AI, is one such tool that transforms ordinary presentations into captivating experiences. By leveraging these advanced features, you can deliver presentations that are successful, memorable, and truly unforgettable, embodying the essence of tips for presentation mastery.

Whether you’re an experienced speaker or preparing for your first presentation, Prezi equips you with the tools to succeed. Engage your audience, tell compelling stories, and deliver your message with confidence and creativity. Following effective presentation tips and exploring how Prezi AI can transform your next presentation is a step towards mastering the art of impactful communication. Delve into the features and begin your journey to presentation mastery today.

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Powerful and Effective Presentation Skills: More in Demand Now Than Ever

When we talk with our L&D colleagues from around the globe, we often hear that presentation skills training is one of the top opportunities they’re looking to provide their learners. And this holds true whether their learners are individual contributors, people managers, or senior leaders. This is not surprising.

Effective communications skills are a powerful career activator, and most of us are called upon to communicate in some type of formal presentation mode at some point along the way.

For instance, you might be asked to brief management on market research results, walk your team through a new process, lay out the new budget, or explain a new product to a client or prospect. Or you may want to build support for a new idea, bring a new employee into the fold, or even just present your achievements to your manager during your performance review.

And now, with so many employees working from home or in hybrid mode, and business travel in decline, there’s a growing need to find new ways to make effective presentations when the audience may be fully virtual or a combination of in person and remote attendees.

Whether you’re making a standup presentation to a large live audience, or a sit-down one-on-one, whether you’re delivering your presentation face to face or virtually, solid presentation skills matter.

Even the most seasoned and accomplished presenters may need to fine-tune or update their skills. Expectations have changed over the last decade or so. Yesterday’s PowerPoint which primarily relied on bulleted points, broken up by the occasional clip-art image, won’t cut it with today’s audience.

The digital revolution has revolutionized the way people want to receive information. People expect presentations that are more visually interesting. They expect to see data, metrics that support assertions. And now, with so many previously in-person meetings occurring virtually, there’s an entirely new level of technical preparedness required.

The leadership development tools and the individual learning opportunities you’re providing should include presentation skills training that covers both the evergreen fundamentals and the up-to-date capabilities that can make or break a presentation.

So, just what should be included in solid presentation skills training? Here’s what I think.

The fundamentals will always apply When it comes to making a powerful and effective presentation, the fundamentals will always apply. You need to understand your objective. Is it strictly to convey information, so that your audience’s knowledge is increased? Is it to persuade your audience to take some action? Is it to convince people to support your idea? Once you understand what your objective is, you need to define your central message. There may be a lot of things you want to share with your audience during your presentation, but find – and stick with – the core, the most important point you want them to walk away with. And make sure that your message is clear and compelling.

You also need to tailor your presentation to your audience. Who are they and what might they be expecting? Say you’re giving a product pitch to a client. A technical team may be interested in a lot of nitty-gritty product detail. The business side will no doubt be more interested in what returns they can expect on their investment.

Another consideration is the setting: is this a formal presentation to a large audience with questions reserved for the end, or a presentation in a smaller setting where there’s the possibility for conversation throughout? Is your presentation virtual or in-person? To be delivered individually or as a group? What time of the day will you be speaking? Will there be others speaking before you and might that impact how your message will be received?

Once these fundamentals are established, you’re in building mode. What are the specific points you want to share that will help you best meet your objective and get across your core message? Now figure out how to convey those points in the clearest, most straightforward, and succinct way. This doesn’t mean that your presentation has to be a series of clipped bullet points. No one wants to sit through a presentation in which the presenter reads through what’s on the slide. You can get your points across using stories, fact, diagrams, videos, props, and other types of media.

Visual design matters While you don’t want to clutter up your presentation with too many visual elements that don’t serve your objective and can be distracting, using a variety of visual formats to convey your core message will make your presentation more memorable than slides filled with text. A couple of tips: avoid images that are cliched and overdone. Be careful not to mix up too many different types of images. If you’re using photos, stick with photos. If you’re using drawn images, keep the style consistent. When data are presented, stay consistent with colors and fonts from one type of chart to the next. Keep things clear and simple, using data to support key points without overwhelming your audience with too much information. And don’t assume that your audience is composed of statisticians (unless, of course, it is).

When presenting qualitative data, brief videos provide a way to engage your audience and create emotional connection and impact. Word clouds are another way to get qualitative data across.

Practice makes perfect You’ve pulled together a perfect presentation. But it likely won’t be perfect unless it’s well delivered. So don’t forget to practice your presentation ahead of time. Pro tip: record yourself as you practice out loud. This will force you to think through what you’re going to say for each element of your presentation. And watching your recording will help you identify your mistakes—such as fidgeting, using too many fillers (such as “umm,” or “like”), or speaking too fast.

A key element of your preparation should involve anticipating any technical difficulties. If you’ve embedded videos, make sure they work. If you’re presenting virtually, make sure that the lighting is good, and that your speaker and camera are working. Whether presenting in person or virtually, get there early enough to work out any technical glitches before your presentation is scheduled to begin. Few things are a bigger audience turn-off than sitting there watching the presenter struggle with the delivery mechanisms!

Finally, be kind to yourself. Despite thorough preparation and practice, sometimes, things go wrong, and you need to recover in the moment, adapt, and carry on. It’s unlikely that you’ll have caused any lasting damage and the important thing is to learn from your experience, so your next presentation is stronger.

How are you providing presentation skills training for your learners?

Manika Gandhi is Senior Learning Design Manager at Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning. Email her at [email protected] .

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• PRESENTATION SKILLS

Top Tips for Effective Presentations

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How can you make a good presentation even more effective?

This page draws on published advice from expert presenters around the world, which will help to take your presentations from merely ‘good’ to ‘great’.

By bringing together advice from a wide range of people, the aim is to cover a whole range of areas.

Whether you are an experienced presenter, or just starting out, there should be ideas here to help you to improve.

1. Show your Passion and Connect with your Audience

It’s hard to be relaxed and be yourself when you’re nervous.

But time and again, the great presenters say that the most important thing is to connect with your audience, and the best way to do that is to let your passion for the subject shine through.

Be honest with the audience about what is important to you and why it matters.

Be enthusiastic and honest, and the audience will respond.

2. Focus on your Audience’s Needs

Your presentation needs to be built around what your audience is going to get out of the presentation.

As you prepare the presentation, you always need to bear in mind what the audience needs and wants to know, not what you can tell them.

While you’re giving the presentation, you also need to remain focused on your audience’s response, and react to that.

You need to make it easy for your audience to understand and respond.

3. Keep it Simple: Concentrate on your Core Message

When planning your presentation, you should always keep in mind the question:

What is the key message (or three key points) for my audience to take away?

You should be able to communicate that key message very briefly.

Some experts recommend a 30-second ‘elevator summary’, others that you can write it on the back of a business card, or say it in no more than 15 words.

Whichever rule you choose, the important thing is to keep your core message focused and brief.

And if what you are planning to say doesn’t contribute to that core message, don’t say it.

4. Smile and Make Eye Contact with your Audience

This sounds very easy, but a surprisingly large number of presenters fail to do it.

If you smile and make eye contact, you are building rapport , which helps the audience to connect with you and your subject. It also helps you to feel less nervous, because you are talking to individuals, not to a great mass of unknown people.

To help you with this, make sure that you don’t turn down all the lights so that only the slide screen is visible. Your audience needs to see you as well as your slides.

5. Start Strongly

The beginning of your presentation is crucial. You need to grab your audience’s attention and hold it.

They will give you a few minutes’ grace in which to entertain them, before they start to switch off if you’re dull. So don’t waste that on explaining who you are. Start by entertaining them.

Try a story (see tip 7 below), or an attention-grabbing (but useful) image on a slide.

6. Remember the 10-20-30 Rule for Slideshows

This is a tip from Guy Kawasaki of Apple. He suggests that slideshows should:

• Contain no more than 10 slides;
• Last no more than 20 minutes; and
• Use a font size of no less than 30 point.

This last is particularly important as it stops you trying to put too much information on any one slide. This whole approach avoids the dreaded ‘Death by PowerPoint’.

As a general rule, slides should be the sideshow to you, the presenter. A good set of slides should be no use without the presenter, and they should definitely contain less, rather than more, information, expressed simply.

If you need to provide more information, create a bespoke handout and give it out after your presentation.

7. Tell Stories

Human beings are programmed to respond to stories.

Stories help us to pay attention, and also to remember things. If you can use stories in your presentation, your audience is more likely to engage and to remember your points afterwards. It is a good idea to start with a story, but there is a wider point too: you need your presentation to act like a story.

Think about what story you are trying to tell your audience, and create your presentation to tell it.

Finding The Story Behind Your Presentation

To effectively tell a story, focus on using at least one of the two most basic storytelling mechanics in your presentation:

Focusing On Characters – People have stories; things, data, and objects do not. So ask yourself “who” is directly involved in your topic that you can use as the focal point of your story.

For example, instead of talking about cars (your company’s products), you could focus on specific characters like:

• The drivers the car is intended for – people looking for speed and adventure
• The engineers who went out of their way to design the most cost-effective car imaginable

A Changing Dynamic – A story needs something to change along the way. So ask yourself “What is not as it should be?” and answer with what you are going to do about it (or what you did about it).

For example…

• Did hazardous road conditions inspire you to build a rugged, all-terrain jeep that any family could afford?
• Did a complicated and confusing food labelling system lead you to establish a colour-coded nutritional index so that anybody could easily understand it?

To see 15 more actionable storytelling tips, see Nuts & Bolts Speed Training’s post on Storytelling Tips .

8. Use your Voice Effectively

The spoken word is actually a pretty inefficient means of communication, because it uses only one of your audience’s five senses. That’s why presenters tend to use visual aids, too. But you can help to make the spoken word better by using your voice effectively.

Varying the speed at which you talk, and emphasising changes in pitch and tone all help to make your voice more interesting and hold your audience’s attention.

For more about this, see our page on Effective Speaking .

9. Use your Body Too

It has been estimated that more than three quarters of communication is non-verbal.

That means that as well as your tone of voice, your body language is crucial to getting your message across. Make sure that you are giving the right messages: body language to avoid includes crossed arms, hands held behind your back or in your pockets, and pacing the stage.

Make your gestures open and confident, and move naturally around the stage, and among the audience too, if possible.

10. Relax, Breathe and Enjoy

If you find presenting difficult, it can be hard to be calm and relaxed about doing it.

One option is to start by concentrating on your breathing. Slow it down, and make sure that you’re breathing fully. Make sure that you continue to pause for breath occasionally during your presentation too.

For more ideas, see our page on Coping with Presentation Nerves .

If you can bring yourself to relax, you will almost certainly present better. If you can actually start to enjoy yourself, your audience will respond to that, and engage better. Your presentations will improve exponentially, and so will your confidence. It’s well worth a try.

Improve your Presentation Skills

Follow our guide to boost your presentation skills learning about preparation, delivery, questions and all other aspects of giving effective presentations.

Start with: What is a Presentation?

Continue to: How to Give a Speech Self Presentation

See also: Five Ways You Can Do Visual Marketing on a Budget Can Presentation Science Improve Your Presentation? Typography – It’s All About the Message in Your Slides

Improve your practice.

Enhance your soft skills with a range of award-winning courses.

Complete Guide for Effective Presentations, with Examples

July 9, 2018 - Dom Barnard

During a presentation you aim to look confident, enthusiastic and natural. You’ll need more than good words and content to achieve this – your delivery plays a significant part. In this article, we discuss various techniques that can be used to deliver an effective presentation.

Effective presentations

Think about if you were in the audience, what would:

• Get you to focus and listen
• Make you understand
• Activate your imagination
• Persuade you

Providing the audience with interesting information is not enough to achieve these aims – you need to ensure that the way you present is stimulating and engaging. If it’s not, you’ll lose the audience’s interest and they’ll stop listening.

Tips for an Effective Presentation

Professional public speakers spend hours creating and practicing presentations. These are the delivery techniques they consider:

Keep it simple

You shouldn’t overwhelm your audience with information – ensure that you’re clear, concise and that you get to the point so they can understand your message.

Have a maximum of  three main points  and state them at the beginning, before you explain them in more depth, and then state them at the end so the audience will at least remember these points.

If some of your content doesn’t contribute to your key message then cut it out. Also avoid using too many statistics and technical terminology.

Connect with your audience

One of the greatest difficulties when delivering a presentation is connecting with the audience. If you don’t  connect with them  it will seem as though you’re talking to an empty room.

Trying to make contact with the audience makes them feel like they’re part of the presentation which encourages them to listen and it shows that you want to speak to them.

Eye contact and smile

Avoiding eye contact is uncomfortable because it make you look insecure. When you  maintain eye contact  the audience feels like you’re speaking to them personally. If this is something you struggle with, try looking at people’s foreheads as it gives the impression of making eye contact.

Try to cover all sections of the audience and don’t move on to the next person too quickly as you will look nervous.

Smiling also helps with rapport and it reduces your nerves because you’ll feel less like you’re talking to group of faceless people. Make sure you don’t turn the lights down too much before your presentation so you can all clearly see each other.

Body language

Be aware of your body language and use it to connect:

• Keep your arms uncrossed so your  body language is more open .
• Match your facial expressions with what you’re saying.
• Avoid fidgeting and displaying nervous habits, such as, rocking on your feet.
• You may need to glance at the computer slide or a visual aid but make sure you predominantly face the audience.
• Emphasise points by using hand gestures but use them sparingly – too little and they’ll awkwardly sit at your side, too much and you’ll be distracting and look nervous.
• Vary your gestures so you don’t look robotic.
• Maintain a straight posture.
• Be aware of  cultural differences .

Move around

Avoid standing behind the lectern or computer because you need to reduce the distance and barriers between yourself and the audience.  Use movement  to increase the audience’s interest and make it easier to follow your presentation.

A common technique for incorporating movement into your presentation is to:

• Start your introduction by standing in the centre of the stage.
• For your first point you stand on the left side of the stage.
• You discuss your second point from the centre again.
• You stand on the right side of the stage for your third point.
• The conclusion occurs in the centre.

Watch 3 examples of good and bad movement while presenting

Example: Movement while presenting

Your movement at the front of the class and amongst the listeners can help with engagement. Think about which of these three speakers maintains the attention of their audience for longer, and what they are doing differently to each other.

Speak with the audience

You can conduct polls using your audience or ask questions to make them think and feel invested in your presentation. There are three different types of questions:

Direct questions require an answer: “What would you do in this situation?” These are mentally stimulating for the audience. You can pass a microphone around and let the audience come to your desired solution.

Rhetorical questions  do not require answers, they are often used to emphasises an idea or point: “Is the Pope catholic?

Loaded questions contain an unjustified assumption made to prompt the audience into providing a particular answer which you can then correct to support your point: You may ask “Why does your wonderful company have such a low incidence of mental health problems?” The audience will generally answer that they’re happy.

After receiving the answers you could then say “Actually it’s because people are still unwilling and too embarrassed to seek help for mental health issues at work etc.”

Be specific with your language

Make the audience feel as though you are speaking to each member individually by using “you” and “your.”

For example: asking “Do you want to lose weight without feeling hungry?” would be more effective than asking “Does anyone here want to lost weight without feeling hungry?” when delivering your presentation. You can also increase solidarity by using “we”, “us” etc – it makes the audience think “we’re in this together”.

Be flexible

Be prepared to adapt to the situation at the time, for example, if the audience seems bored you can omit details and go through the material faster, if they are confused then you will need to come up with more examples on the spot for clarification. This doesn’t mean that you weren’t prepared because you can’t predict everything.

Vocal variety

How you say something is just as is important as the content of your speech – arguably, more so.

For example, if an individual presented on a topic very enthusiastically the audience would probably enjoy this compared to someone who covered more points but mumbled into their notes.

• Adapt your voice  depending on what are you’re saying – if you want to highlight something then raise your voice or lower it for intensity. Communicate emotion by using your voice.
• Avoid speaking in monotone as you will look uninterested and the audience will lose interest.
• Take time to pronounce every word carefully.
• Raise your pitch when asking questions and lower it when you want to sound severe.
• Sound enthusiastic – the more you sound like you care about the topic, the more the audience will listen. Smiling and pace can help with this.
• Speak loudly and clearly – think about projecting your voice to the back of the room.
• Speak at a  pace that’s easy to follow . If you’re too fast or too slow it will be difficult for the audience to understand what you’re saying and it’s also frustrating. Subtly fasten the pace to show enthusiasm and slow down for emphasis, thoughtfulness or caution.

Prior to the presentation, ensure that you  prepare your vocal chords :

• You could read aloud a book that requires vocal variety, such as, a children’s book.
• Avoid dairy and eating or drinking anything too sugary beforehand as mucus can build-up leading to frequent throat clearing.
• Don’t drink anything too cold before you present as this can constrict your throat which affects vocal quality.
• Some people suggest a warm cup of tea beforehand to relax the throat.

Practice Presentation Skills

Improve your public speaking and presentation skills by practicing them in realistic environments, with automated feedback on performance. Learn More

Pause to breathe

When you’re anxious your breathing will become quick and shallow which will affect the control you have on your voice. This can consequently make you feel more nervous. You want to breathe steadily and deeply so before you start speaking take some deep breaths or implement controlled breathing.

Controlled breathing is a common technique that helps slow down your breathing to normal thus reducing your anxiety. If you think this may be useful practice with these steps:

• Sit down in an upright position as it easier for your lungs to fill with air
• Breathe in through your nose and into your abdomen for four seconds
• Hold this breathe for two seconds
• Breathe out through your nose for six seconds
• Wait a few seconds before inhaling and repeating the cycle

It takes practice to master this technique but once you get used to it you may want to implement it directly before your presentation.

Completely filling your lungs during a pause will ensure you reach a greater vocal range.

During the presentation delivery, if you notice that you’re speaking too quickly then pause and breathe. This won’t look strange – it will appear as though you’re giving thought to what you’re saying. You can also strategically plan some of your pauses, such as after questions and at the end of sections, because this will give you a chance to calm down and it will also give the audience an opportunity to think and reflect.

Pausing will also help you  avoid filler words , such as, “um” as well which can make you sound unsure.

• 10 Effective Ways to use Pauses in your Speech

Strong opening

The first five minutes are  vital to engage the audience  and get them listening to you. You could start with a story to highlight why your topic is significant.

For example, if the topic is on the benefits of pets on physical and psychological health, you could present a story or a study about an individual whose quality of life significantly improved after being given a dog. The audience is more likely to respond better to this and remember this story than a list of facts.

Example: Which presentation intro keeps you engaged?

Watch 5 different presentation introductions, from both virtual and in-person events. Notice how it can only take a few seconds to decide if you want to keep listening or switch off. For the good introductions, what about them keeps you engaged?

More experienced and confident public speakers use humour in their presentations. The audience will be incredibly engaged if you make them laugh but caution must be exercised when using humour because a joke can be misinterpreted and even offend the audience.

Only use jokes if you’re confident with this technique, it has been successful in the past and it’s suitable for the situation.

Stories and anecdotes

Use stories whenever you can and judge whether you can tell a story about yourself because the audience are even more interested in seeing the human side of you.

Consider telling a story about a mistake you made, for example, perhaps you froze up during an important presentation when you were 25, or maybe life wasn’t going well for you in the past – if relevant to your presentation’s aim. People will relate to this as we have all experienced mistakes and failures. The more the audience relates to you, the more likely they will remain engaged.

These stories can also be  told in a humorous way  if it makes you feel more comfortable and because you’re disclosing a personal story there is less chance of misinterpretation compared to telling a joke.

Anecdotes are especially valuable for your introduction and between different sections of the presentation because they engage the audience. Ensure that you plan the stories thoroughly beforehand and that they are not too long.

Focus on the audience’s needs

Even though your aim is to persuade the audience, they must also get something helpful from the presentation. Provide the audience with value by giving them useful information, tactics, tips etc. They’re more likely to warm to you and trust you if you’re sharing valuable information with them.

You could also highlight their pain point. For example, you might ask “Have you found it difficult to stick to a healthy diet?” The audience will now want to remain engaged because they want to know the solution and the opportunities that you’re offering.

Use visual aids

Visual aids are items of a visual manner, such as graphs, photographs, video clips etc used in addition to spoken information. Visual aids are chosen depending on their purpose, for example, you may want to:

• Summarise information.
• Reduce the amount of spoken words, for example, you may show a graph of your results rather than reading them out.
• Clarify and show examples.
• Create more of an impact. You must consider what type of impact you want to make beforehand – do you want the audience to be sad, happy, angry etc?
• Emphasise what you’re saying.
• Make a point memorable.
• Enhance your credibility.
• Engage the audience and maintain their interest.
• Make something easier for the audience to understand.

Some general tips for  using visual aids :

• Think about how can a visual aid can support your message. What do you want the audience to do?
• Ensure that your visual aid follows what you’re saying or this will confuse the audience.
• Avoid cluttering the image as it may look messy and unclear.
• Visual aids must be clear, concise and of a high quality.
• Keep the style consistent, such as, the same font, colours, positions etc
• Use graphs and charts to present data.
• The audience should not be trying to read and listen at the same time – use visual aids to highlight your points.
• One message per visual aid, for example, on a slide there should only be one key point.
• Use visual aids in moderation – they are additions meant to emphasise and support main points.
• Ensure that your presentation still works without your visual aids in case of technical problems.

10-20-30 slideshow rule

Slideshows are widely used for presentations because it’s easy to create attractive and professional presentations using them. Guy Kawasaki, an entrepreneur and author, suggests that slideshows should  follow a 10-20-30 rule :

• There should be a maximum of 10 slides – people rarely remember more than one concept afterwards so there’s no point overwhelming them with unnecessary information.
• The presentation should last no longer than 20 minutes as this will leave time for questions and discussion.
• The font size should be a minimum of 30pt because the audience reads faster than you talk so less information on the slides means that there is less chance of the audience being distracted.

If you want to give the audience more information you can provide them with partially completed handouts or give them the handouts after you’ve delivered the presentation.

Keep a drink nearby

Have something to drink when you’re on stage, preferably water at room temperature. This will help maintain your vocal quality and having a sip is a subtle way of introducing pauses.

Practice, practice, practice

If you are very familiar with the content of your presentation, your audience will perceive you as confident and you’ll be more persuasive.

• Don’t just read the presentation through – practice everything,  including your transitions  and using your visual aids.
• Stand up and speak it aloud, in an engaging manner, as though you were presenting to an audience.
• Ensure that you practice your body language and gesturing.
• Use VR to  practice in a realistic environment .
• Practice in front of others and get their feedback.
• Freely improvise so you’ll sound more natural on the day. Don’t learn your presentation verbatim because you will sound uninterested and if you lose focus then you may forget everything.
• Create cards to use as cues – one card should be used for one key idea. Write down brief notes or key words and ensure that the cards are physically connected so the order cannot be lost. Visual prompts can also be used as cues.

This video shows how you can practice presentations in virtual reality. See our  VR training courses .

Two courses where you can practice your presentations in interactive exercises:

• Essential Public Speaking
• How to Present over Video

Try these different presentation delivery methods to see which ones you prefer and which need to be improved. The most important factor is to feel comfortable during the presentation as the delivery is likely to be better.

Remember that the audience are generally on your side – they want you to do well so present with confidence.

The Ultimate Guide to Effective Teacher Presentations: Strategies & Tips

Dianne Adlawan

Teachers, by nature, are considered professional presenters. Their main responsibility is to talk in front of their students to relay educational knowledge, sharpen their minds and skills, and even serve as a second guide alongside their parents. They also speak in front of parents, co-teachers, and school administrators. This just means that preparing for a presentation is already not new to them.

Still, teachers can become so comfortable with their presentation routine that their techniques turn into autopilot. The result of a repetitive task can become tiring and not challenging anymore which may result in students losing interest or attention span in the process.

The tips featured in this article are dedicated to these hard-working professionals. This will help them prepare and perform a better presentation in front of any type of audience.

Why You Should Prepare for a Presentation

• Preparation helps you build to structure your thoughts to create a well-organized presentation. By taking the time to prepare, you can decide what information is most important, plan the flow of the presentation, and make sure that everything is connected and easy to follow.
• Second, it allows you to think ahead of the questions that your audience might ask. Especially if you’re giving a presentation to a group of various audiences, who are curious about the topic at hand. By preparing in advance, you’ll be able to answer any questions they may have, which will not only increase their understanding but also boost your credibility as a teacher.
• Lastly, preparation helps you make the most of your time. Advanced preparation ahead of the presentation can ensure that you’re not wasting time trying to organize your thoughts at the last minute.

Effects of an Organized and Well-Planned Presentation

An audience engages with a speaker who knows their words and poses a confident attitude. While the projector may display clear and concise slides, the presenter is the main ingredient to every presentation.

For teachers, a well-planned lesson presentation helps the teacher maintain the attention and interest of their students, which is crucial for effective learning. Additionally, being organized and prepared will help teachers convey their ideas more effectively and it will help the teacher to feel more confident, which also impacts their teaching and in turn can help to build trust and rapport with their students.

Possible Outcomes of An Unprepared Presentation

Let’s suppose you haven’t allocated enough time to plan and prepare for an important presentation. What could be the potential outcomes?

• Increased Stress and Anxiety: Lack of preparation can lead to increased anxiety and stress, which can not only hinder your ability to deliver a convincing presentation but also hurt your mental health and work balance. It can cause a “mental block,” causing you to lose focus and concentration during your delivery.
• Poor Presentation Delivery: Without proper preparation, your presentation can appear scattered and disjointed. This can lead to an incoherent message that fails to convince your audience.
• Diminished credibility: Delivering an unprepared presentation can harm your reputation as a professional. It can portray you as disorganized and unreliable which could lead your colleagues or students to question your competence and reliability.

Effective Visual and Content Organization Tips

Consider this as the first stage towards an effective teacher presentation. Before moving on to improving your verbal communication cues, let’s enhance first your presentation visuals and content.

Visual Tips

1. add powerpoint animations and different media.

Establishing an attractive slideshow is one of the keys to a successful presentation. This will put a good impression on your audience that you’re prepared just by seeing how well-designed your presentation is. Of course, images add to slideshow attraction, but consider adding another forms of media such as GIFs and videos, as well as animations! Microsoft PowerPoint has a lot of fun & captivating features that you may not be aware of. Check out this example of an easy yet appealing Slide Zoom trick in PowerPoint that you can add to your presentation to wow your audience.

@classpoint.io Did someone say FREE??? Yes, we did. Here are free websites to help you upgrade your next PowerPoint presentation! 😎 #powerpoint #presentation #design #studytok #edutok #tutorial #tipsandtricks #ai ♬ original sound – r & m <33

Read Next: Make Your Presentations POP With This PowerPoint Animation Template

2. Use Readable Font Styles

Make sure to use the best font style that makes your presentation look sleek, readable, and won’t strain your audience’s eyes while reading. We all want to use a fancy font, trust me, I get it. But most of the time, simplicity is beauty, especially if you’re presenting a professional-looking slideshow. Font styles such as Poppins, Tahoma, Verdana, Montserrat, and Helvetica are great examples of font styles that screams simple yet professional to look at.

On the other hand, font styles such as Bradley Hand, Comic Sans, and Chiller are not ideal choices as they are not meant to captivate your audience’s eyes. And another tip is to stick to two or three fonts only!

3. Use Relevant Graphics

Selecting graphics for designing your presentation depends on your audience and the goals you aim to achieve with the presentation. For example, if you are presenting in front of students and your goal is to keep them engaged, motivated, and actively participating, then you might consider incorporating charts, tables, and relevant shapes into your design.

It’s important to remember that your presentation design should align with the theme of your topic.

Free Websites to Upgrade your Presentation Graphics:

• Craiyon. com
• The Noun Project

4. Use Audience Engagement tools to Activate Learning

Want the quickest solution to an engaged audience? Well, it’s audience interactive activities! Adding interactive activities to your presentation can help keep your audience engaged and interested. One of the easiest ways to do this is to use ClassPoint, an audience engagement tool added right into PowerPoint presentations.

With ClassPoint, you no longer need to worry about strategies to keep your students engaged, as this tool transforms PowerPoint into a teacher presentation tool with a teacher toolbelt and student quizzes , polls, and games that make presentations more fun & engaging.

By combining ClassPoint with your presentation techniques, you can focus solely on setting up your lesson content in PowerPoint and allow ClassPoint to handle the rest for achieving a learning-activated presentation lesson .

🔍 Learn more about ClassPoint, the teacher add-in for better lessons & student engagement 👍

5. Use a Laser Pointer

Help focus your audience attention by using a laser pointer!

With the help of a laser pointer device, teachers are able to attract the attention of their audiences and concentrate on essential points in their presentations. Highlighting these main ideas and terms assists the speaker in organizing their speech, preventing distraction, and increasing retention of the information presented.

You can use a physical laser pointer & clicker, or with the addition of ClassPoint into PowerPoint, presenters can easily turn their cursor into a laser or a spotlight . This can make it even easier for students to follow along and is a convenient tool for creating a more captivating teacher presentation.

Secret tip: if you write on your slide with the laser, it will leave disappearing ink! 🪄

Content Tips

1. research and fact-check your presentation.

As educators, it is crucial to equip ourselves with reliable and accurate information before presenting to our students. We have a responsibility to not only educate them but to also mold them into critical thinkers who are equipped with factual knowledge. Without thorough fact-checking, we risk disseminating misinformation and hindering their intellectual growth.

To avoid such situations, we must prioritize research and fact-checking before presenting any information. Conducting research helps us not only in finding accurate information but also in ensuring that the sources we use are reliable and credible. Moreover, taking the time to fact-check demonstrates our commitment to providing students with high-quality education and the desire to create a safe and accurate learning environment.

2. Be Prepared to Anticipate Questions during the Presentation

It is important to be well-prepared for a presentation especially anticipating and addressing questions. This applies particularly to a teacher presentation, as educators face varied expectations and questions. Adequate preparation allows you to organize ideas and justifications, and it can deepen understanding, boost confidence, and improve adaptability. Addressing questions, makes your audiences feel heard and appreciated. This will result in comprehensive presentations, enhanced confidence, improved information flow, and an atmosphere of respect and understanding.

A great & visual way you can elaborate, or explain your material in new ways, is by using ClassPoint’s whiteboard tools added to PowerPoint. ClassPoint’s added toolbar presents teachers with unlimited whiteboard slides they can open whenever they need, and user-friendly yet comprehensive pen tools with available shapes, and text boxes. Plus you can also use ClassPoint’s quick poll or other question types to assess students’ understanding with hard data & insights.

Addressing questions well makes your audience or students feel heard & appreciated leading to improved learning, enhanced confidence, and a respectful, safe learning environment.

3. Provide an Outline Structure of your Content

When you are preparing your presentation, it is best to first create an effective outline structure that will guide your presentation flow and help you focus on the main learning objective. But what you may not be doing, is offering that outline structure to your students, but you should!

Providing students with a clear understanding of what this lesson is about, the structure of the lesson, and what they will be able to take away from it is important. By doing so, you can help students stay focused and follow along with the material. Additionally, you are setting expectations and ensuring that everyone is on the same page, which can help promote student autonomy. So, include an outline at the start of your presentation lesson.

Step-by-Step Strategies for a Successful Presentation

Before presentation, know your audience, your students, or observers.

Once you have completed your deck, you may want to add a guide script and any additional notes with important points you don’t want to forget or you want to highlight in your presentation to impress your students .

Practice your presentation delivery/lesson

Practice delivering your presentation give you a chance to fine-tune your content and get your facts down. This will help you become more comfortable with the material and identify areas that need improvement. You can practice in front of a mirror, record yourself and watch it back, or even rehearse with a colleague or friend. When practicing, pay attention to your posture, tone of voice, and pacing. By doing so, you’ll be able to deliver a confident and engaging presentation that will captivate your audience.

Use a friendly tone of voice and pace

Adjust your tone to match your message, and avoid speaking too quickly so that your audience will get the chance to absorb the information you’re sharing. By being mindful of these aspects, you will capture your audience’s attention and leave them feeling informed and inspired.

Use engaging body language

Body language is essential for engaging your audience during a presentation. Stand up straight, make eye contact, and use hand gestures to emphasize important points. You can also move around the classroom to keep your students’ attention. By using engaging body language, you’ll be able to convey your message more effectively and keep your students interested throughout the presentation. You’ve got this!

During Presentation

Create an icebreaker.

Having an icebreaker is a warm-up for your students’ brains, allowing you to focus and engage with the material being presented. It also helps break down any barriers or tension between the presenter and the audience, making for a more relaxed and welcoming atmosphere. Additionally, an icebreaker provides an opportunity for the presenter to showcase their creativity and personality, adding an extra level of excitement and engagement to the presentation.

Good thing that ClassPoint has numerous features to help you perform an entertaining and unforgettable icebreaker. Here are some examples that you can use during an icebreaker.

• Quick Poll : Quick Poll allows you to create interactive polls right inside your presentation. When used as an icebreaker, it can engage the audience, initiate discussions, and provide valuable insights that help tailor the content to participants’ preferences.
• Word Cloud: Presenters can ask thought-provoking questions related to the topic or general interest. Using Word Cloud, the audiences can answer through their mobile which can be instantly seen as collective responses, with the most frequently mentioned words appearing larger.
• Short Answer : In short answer, you can challenge your audiences’ thought process in a short-form writing activity with no options to get from to test their ability to understand.
• Image Upload : Using single image, audiences can interpret what they feel like, or their mood using only the photos in their gallery or surroundings. A creative yet fun way for an icebreaker!

Speak clearly

Effective communication is crucial when presenting important information to students. Speaking clearly helps ensure that students understand the concepts being taught and follow instructions effectively. As a teacher, it’s important to focus on clear speech to promote effective communication and help your students comprehend the material being presented.

Pay attention to your audience’s attention

Since distractions are aplenty, attention spans are dwindling, it’s important for presenters to captivate their audience’s attention right from the beginning. For teachers, when speaking in front of your class, you should not only focus on the content of your presentation but also on your students’ attention.

To ensure that your students won’t start drifting away or zoning out, start with a compelling opening that immediately grabs their attention. Use vivid storytelling, examples, or demonstrations to engage your students and drive home your message. Don’t forget the power of humor, and never be afraid to be yourself – authentic, passionate, and confident.

Add Personality: share short relatable stories

“A great personality makes everyone feel energized; just like a flower’s fragrance that freshens ups the complete surrounding.” 29 Personality Quotes to Achieve Greatness

As to what is stated in the quote, having a positive and vibrant personality affects the overall mood of your surrounding, it can capture the audience’s attention and maintain their interest throughout the presentation. While the ultimate goal is to deliver a presentation rich with new learnings and knowledge, adding humor can do no harm to lift up the mood in the room. You might want to start by segueing a short story that your students can relate to and make interactions by encouraging them to share a story too or ask questions.

Post-Presentation Reflection

Take the comments by heart.

Receiving feedback from your students is a great way for evaluating the efficacy of a teacher presentation. This can help you identify areas where you can improve and tailor your teaching tactics to better suit the needs of your students. Listening to your students’ feedback can also promote a feeling of cooperation and enable them to become more actively involved in the learning experience. So, don’t be afraid to ask for feedback and take it to heart in order to continually improve your presentations.

Experienced educators understand that they are perpetually crafting their skills, and feedback from their audience brings an opportunity for professional advancement. In addition, accepting audience feedback illustrates esteem and worth for the students’ views. It promotes a feeling of cooperation and enables students to become more actively involved in the learning experience.

Preparing for a presentation is essential for teachers to deliver engaging and impactful content to their students. By structuring thoughts, anticipating questions, and preparing ahead, teachers can achieve a well-organized presentation that will enhance the students’ understanding and leave them feeling confident.

By following our strategies and tips teachers can achieve successful lessons using PowerPoint presentations. And, with the help of an advanced educational technology tool like ClassPoint, teachers can create dynamic and memorable presentations that their students will enjoy and actively participate in.

Try out ClassPoint today and experience a whole teacher presentation in PowerPoint! ✨

About Dianne Adlawan

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• Flexible Teaching
• Guide to Course Materials

How do I create effective slide presentations?

Have you ever sat through a presentation and thought it might be easier to pay attention if the slides were clearer? Too often presentation slides turn into lists of bullet points or walls of text that act as cues for presenters, not aids for students.

Whether you are creating a presentation for a face-to-face lecture or for an online video, it is important that your presentation is clear, concise, and engaging for the student. There are many types of presentation programs, such as PowerPoint, Keynote and Google Slides. No matter which you choose, the following advice applies.

Strive for simplicity

Use handouts for texts, not slides. It is better for students to pay attention to you than to spend time trying to read your slides while you are speaking. If they need to read a longer text, you should make it available as a handout or downloadable document. That way, they can read at their own pace.

Get rid of bullet points. Bullet points do not add any visual interest or meaning to your slides. A slide full of bullet points can easily become a wall of text that loses viewer focus. 

In this example, the instructor was guiding the student through important dates. The first image lists bullet points with large amounts of text and a confusing title. In the second image, the title was reworded and the main dates were turned into a timeline with important information highlighted in shorter, easier to read text.

Reduce words on your slides. Avoid large amounts of text. Some presenters feel they need to include every detail. A cluttered slide can be distracting and cause confusion. Students will spend more time deciphering what they see than on your message. 

In this example, the instructor listed all the factors that influenced the development of financial technology. In the second image, the instructor eliminates all of the bulleted items and groups the main points into two topics.

Make one point per slide. Each slide should represent one topic or point. While it seems counterintuitive, having more slides will make it more engaging since students won’t be staring at the same slide for an extended period. At the end of your presentation, you can summarize the points you made in a single synthesis slide.

Once you divide your points into one per slide, look for redundancy. Next, highlight or emphasize the important parts where you want students to pay extra attention.

Do not use your presentation as a teleprompter. Presentations should enhance, supplement or summarize what you are saying. Avoid using your presentation as a placeholder for a script or notes. Use “ speaker notes ” to add prompts for yourself.

Reimagine information

Organize information with side-by-side comparisons. Sometimes you will want your students to compare two ideas or topics. It is best to reflect that comparison side-by-side rather than top-to-bottom form.

The following example compares Chapter 13 and Chapter 7 bankruptcy. The top-to-bottom comparison in the first image is harder to read and understand than the second image’s side-by-side version.

Use color for emphasis. A common way to call attention to important parts of information is to bold text. A judicious use of color will make information stand out more than bold text alone. 

Consider the following images. While both are acceptable, the second image makes the numbers stand out more.

Draw attention to information on graphs. Cluttering a chart with text means the viewers’ eyes will hop between the text and chart. You want students to focus on the important parts. Here are two simple ways to do that.

Option 1: Note the slides below. In the first slide, there are three competing elements: a bar chart, a table and text. That is too much. One simple fix is to enlarge the graph and delete the text.

Option 2: Another way you can enhance the slide is to break up the two charts into two points. Remember, you should strive for one point or topic per slide. Here, the bar chart and table have been enlarged and the points that pertain to the chart are condensed and highlighted on their own slide.

Create an infographic to emphasize numbers and data. Instead of showing hard-to-read charts or graphs that you mention later, consider using an infographic or revising the graph to get your point across and trim the rest. Save complex charts for offline reading. 

The first graph below compares consumer spending, real estate and business spending in the U.S., China and the United Kingdom. This is hard to read, especially on mobile devices.

Since only three countries were being compared, the rest of the countries are unnecessary. While this may be acceptable supplemental material, the extra information is distracting in a presentation.

In the revised infographic, the unnecessary information is removed and only the relevant information is displayed. 

These charts compare the United States to China and the United Kingdom. In the first image, the information is presented in a hard-to-read table. In the second image, the relevant information is isolated, making it easier to understand.

Look and Feel

Slide layout should be 16:9. When creating your slide presentation set your slides to the 16:9 ratio. This is the ratio of most screens. (If you use a 4:3 ratio for a video presentation, you will end up with wasted black space.)

How to change your slide size in…

• Google Slides

Choose the right typefaces. There are two categories of typefaces: serif and sans serif. Arial, Helvetica and Open Sans are sans serif. Times New Roman, Garamond and Georgia are serif. 

While serif typefaces are preferred for printed materials, sans serif is generally best for reading on screens. So use sans serif for text bodies. Use serif typefaces for titles and headings.

Use type consistently. If you choose Arial for text and Times New Roman for your headings, stick with them throughout.  Don’t mix more typefaces in unless there is a good design reason.

• Difference between Serif and Sans Serif 
• Typography FAQ
• The Elements of Typographic Style (book)
• Accessible Fonts

Use high-quality images and graphics. Consider the purpose of an image. Images should complement what you are saying. Avoid clipart, low-resolution images, generic stock images and images that have white backgrounds.

Consider copyright when selecting images. If you are searching for an image, don’t just right-click and save the image. Fair use permits classroom use of copyrighted works, but it limits what you can do with such material outside the classroom.

A better approach is to look for images on sites that are designed for legitimate use. 

• Duke Library guide to images
• Five ways to verify an image and identify the copyright owner
• Creative Commons
• Envato Elements
• Shutterstock

Keep your color palette simple. Limit presentations to three or four main colors and two secondary/accent colors.

• Top Ten Slide Tips
• Teaching Tip: Designing Online Lectures and Recorded Presentations

Making accessible presentations

No matter the topic or message you are trying to convey with your presentation, it should always be accessible. While you may think that this should have been the very first tip mentioned, if you adhere to the previous tips, you will naturally make your presentation accessible. Still, there are a few things to consider.

Choose the right font size. Readability is essential for accessibility. Type size is key to readability and accessibility. No matter what device students use to view your presentation, text should be large enough to read. The general rule is to stick with a minimum of 24 points. If you use each slide to make a single point, you should have room for larger text sizes.

Keep your sentences and text short. While sighted students can quickly read two or three sentences, low-vision students will spend twice as long reading the same text. If you find yourself running out of room, chances are you may need to condense or break up your slide. It is best practice to read out loud any text that everyone must “read.”

Use high contrast. Use lighter text on darker backgrounds and darker text on lighter backgrounds. Avoid red-green combinations. This is especially true for graphs. You should be able to address this concern if you choose an appropriate color palette from the very start.

Do not use color alone to convey meaning. Colors are often used to represent meanings and emotions. While many students may understand the use of some colors to represent a meaning, low-vision or blind students will not. When using colors to represent something or convey an emotion, use thoughtful color choice and a visual cue tied to its meaning. This is especially true when using graphs and charts. 

Red-green, a commonly used color palette, is problematic for the color blind, many of whom cannot distinguish the two. 

It is common practice to use red for:

• high levels

and green for:

This graph uses three colors to represent a particular group. The first image is not accessible because two of the lines are red and green and there are no additional labels. The second image is accessible because the lines have been replaced with two dotted lines and one solid, with labels for each. The red line was also changed to magenta.

Check color contrast:

• Duke Branding and Color Accessibility Guidelines
• Colourcontrast.cc
• Contrast-ration.com
• Chars and Accessibility from Penn St University
• Types of color blindness

Color accessibility:

• Color Oracle
• Sim Daltonism

Be consistent with text and image placement. Keep the placement of images and text in the same location every time. This improves visual consistency and accommodates low vision students. If you have an image on the left and text on the right keep the order the same throughout. 

Below is an example where on one slide the image is on the left and the text on the right. The next slide switches the text and image around. This layout change requires students to make more effort to adjust.

Add alternative text to images. If you plan on making your slide presentation available for download, it is important to add alternative text, or alt text, to images and charts. Alt text is what assistive technologies, such as screen readers, use to describe images, graphs and charts.

Screen readers read the entire alt text out loud. So it’s best to keep the alt text description as short as possible but detailed enough to convey the necessary information. If an image is purely for aesthetics, you do not need to add alt text.

While this is not an exhaustive list, the following are some best practices when adding alt text.

• Aim for 125 characters or less
• Describe the image and be specific
• Don’t start with “image of” or “picture of”, screen readers will identify this on their own
• Use proper spelling, grammar, capitalization and spacing
• If text is embedded in the image, add it in your description
• Do not rely on PowerPoint’s automatic alt text description. This image illustrates the limitations of PowerPoint’s automatic alt texts.

• How to Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the Visually Impaired
• How Do I Address Accessibility Concerns?
• Working with Images in Keynote

Next Topic: How do I address accessibility concerns?

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Flexible Teaching guides were developed by Duke Learning Innovation  and adapted for NIU by the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning. They are shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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5 Teacher Tips For Better Presentations In The Classroom

With slides, less is more. Here are some tips for teachers to make better presentations for engaging learning in the classroom.

What Are The Best Tips For Giving Great Presentations In The Classroom?

contributed by Catherine Willson

When you need to put together information for a presentation for students or other teachers, you can be surprisingly effective without having to do too much at all. Here are some tips for teachers making presentations for in the classroom.

See also 15 Presentation Tools for Teachers

1. Establish one clear idea.

Conventional wisdom of the past used to be about putting as much information and content into a presentation as possible. It was all about trying as hard as you could to come across as an authoritative figure who truly was a master of the subject. That barely works in higher ed, and certainly is pliable in K-12. Consider that you aren’t trying to teach someone everything you know in a short window, but rather making an impression for long-term retention. Focus on one idea with supporting information in a quick period of time.

2. Start with a compelling hook.

When you consider the average suggested presentation length is only around ten minutes, you don’t have any time to waste. Obviously the specifics of the presentation will vary depending upon the grade level, time of day, content being presented and so on. One thing that won’t vary is the need to grab students right off of the bat and have them paying attention from the first few seconds.

As Cision recommends , when the average attention spans have shrunk down to around eight seconds, you know that you need to jump right in with something captivating. Obviously your presentation needs to have a point and needs to be worthwhile as well, but if you can simply give them something that they actually want to see in the first place, you stand a much better shot of being successful in your presentation. It might not seem like a powerful point but it is true in any context.

You might even do it without noticing, but you still do it constantly. Do your ears ever perk up when someone talks about a certain subject? Or, do you hear someone start a conversation with words that bore you and immediately look for a way out? It’s the same thing when it comes to presenting. You only have a few seconds to get it right and hook your class.

3. Prioritize–only put in what’s important.

Another major item to remember is what you are putting into your presentation as far as content is concerned. If you already understand how important it is to captivate your classroom and capitalize on the short attention spans, it’s not a wise strategy to grind the presentation to a screeching halt just so that you can read boring statistics and bland figures. There does need to be some information, but you could read and reference figures without using presentation software in the first place.

By having presentation slides with tons of words, you are just wasting time and filling space that will turn off your viewers. As Mr. Media Training suggests , if you have too many words then you either don’t know your presentation well enough, or your presentation isn’t supported by any additional evidence. The good news is that the technology of companies such as LiveSlides allows you to insert video into PowerPoint so that you can truly bring any sort of evidence you want. Those sorts of slides make perfect sense because you can’t put video on a notecard. Plus, by stimulating your classr with an additional surprise and viewpoint, you aren’t risking students falling asleep because of a long, monotonous message.

4. Consider schema and background knowledge.

Familiar images, references, sounds, music, and other bits of information can act as anchors to ground student understanding, as well as disarming some of the intimidation or anxiety new content can represent for some students. Along with focusing on a single idea per presentation, this can go a long way towards making better presentations for students.

5. With slides, less is more.

Believe it or not, the most acceptable answer from professionals is that you don’t need a lot of slides in a presentation. As Six Minutes Speaking and Presentation Skills suggests , sometimes you don’t need any slides. However, if you are going to give a presentation to your class and you need to have supporting information then you can easily do that with a few slides. The short answer is you probably need fewer slides than you think.

If there’s too much information, students are instantly going to go from trying to listen to you into a mode where they simply skim the PowerPoint slide. Once they realize it is the same message, the PowerPoint slide is basically worthless. You obviously can put summarizing points, facts, and figures into your presentation. But with that being said, PowerPoint was created as a tool and you need to be comfortable with using it. By having the right type of information in it you can actually enhance the presentation and student retention.

A presentation itself isn’t that difficult of a thing to master. So many people are caught up with using PowerPoint that they forget what it is actually for. When you are going to give your next presentation to your class, you need to know your subject matter first and the essentials of PowerPoint and presentation design second. Once you’ve narrowed your content and honed your message, you can capitalize on it by adding in all of the bells, whistles, and other enhancements that will help students retain what they’ve learned.

TeachThought is an organization dedicated to innovation in education through the growth of outstanding teachers.

How-To Geek

8 tips to make the best powerpoint presentations.

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Microsoft Office vs. Google Docs, Sheets, Slides: Which Is Best?

These were infuriating things about linux, now they're no longer issues, how steamos could save windows 10 gaming hardware, quick links, table of contents, start with a goal, less is more, consider your typeface, make bullet points count, limit the use of transitions, skip text where possible, think in color, take a look from the top down, bonus: start with templates.

Slideshows are an intuitive way to share complex ideas with an audience, although they're dull and frustrating when poorly executed. Here are some tips to make your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations sing while avoiding common pitfalls.

It all starts with identifying what we're trying to achieve with the presentation. Is it informative, a showcase of data in an easy-to-understand medium? Or is it more of a pitch, something meant to persuade and convince an audience and lead them to a particular outcome?

It's here where the majority of these presentations go wrong with the inability to identify the talking points that best support our goal. Always start with a goal in mind: to entertain, to inform, or to share data in a way that's easy to understand. Use facts, figures, and images to support your conclusion while keeping structure in mind (Where are we now and where are we going?).

I've found that it's helpful to start with the ending. Once I know how to end a presentation, I know how best to get to that point. I start by identifying the takeaway---that one nugget that I want to implant before thanking everyone for their time---and I work in reverse to figure out how best to get there.

Your mileage, of course, may vary. But it's always going to be a good idea to put in the time in the beginning stages so that you aren't reworking large portions of the presentation later. And that starts with a defined goal.

A slideshow isn't supposed to include everything. It's an introduction to a topic, one that we can elaborate on with speech. Anything unnecessary is a distraction. It makes the presentation less visually appealing and less interesting, and it makes you look bad as a presenter.

This goes for text as well as images. There's nothing worse, in fact, than a series of slides where the presenter just reads them as they appear. Your audience is capable of reading, and chances are they'll be done with the slide, and browsing Reddit, long before you finish. Avoid putting the literal text on the screen, and your audience will thank you.

Related: How to Burn Your PowerPoint to DVD

Right off the bat, we're just going to come out and say that Papyrus and Comic Sans should be banned from all PowerPoint presentations, permanently. Beyond that, it's worth considering the typeface you're using and what it's saying about you, the presenter, and the presentation itself.

Consider choosing readability over aesthetics, and avoid fancy fonts that could prove to be more of a distraction than anything else. A good presentation needs two fonts: a serif and sans-serif. Use one for the headlines and one for body text, lists, and the like. Keep it simple. Veranda, Helvetica, Arial, and even Times New Roman are safe choices. Stick with the classics and it's hard to botch this one too badly.

There reaches a point where bullet points become less of a visual aid and more of a visual examination.

Bullet points should support the speaker, not overwhelm his audience. The best slides have little or no text at all, in fact. As a presenter, it's our job to talk through complex issues, but that doesn't mean that we need to highlight every talking point.

Instead, think about how you can break up large lists into three or four bullet points. Carefully consider whether you need to use more bullet points, or if you can combine multiple topics into a single point instead. And if you can't, remember that there's no one limiting the number of slides you can have in a presentation. It's always possible to break a list of 12 points down into three pages of four points each.

Animation, when used correctly, is a good idea. It breaks up slow-moving parts of a presentation and adds action to elements that require it. But it should be used judiciously.

Adding a transition that wipes left to right between every slide or that animates each bullet point in a list, for example, starts to grow taxing on those forced to endure the presentation. Viewers get bored quickly, and animations that are meant to highlight specific elements quickly become taxing.

That's not to say that you can't use animations and transitions, just that you need to pick your spots. Aim for no more than a handful of these transitions for each presentation. And use them in spots where they'll add to the demonstration, not detract from it.

Sometimes images tell a better story than text can. And as a presenter, your goal is to describe points in detail without making users do a lot of reading. In these cases, a well-designed visual, like a chart, might better convey the information you're trying to share.

The right image adds visual appeal and serves to break up longer, text-heavy sections of the presentation---but only if you're using the right images. A single high-quality image can make all the difference between a success and a dud when you're driving a specific point home.

When considering text, don't think solely in terms of bullet points and paragraphs. Tables, for example, are often unnecessary. Ask yourself whether you could present the same data in a bar or line chart instead.

Color is interesting. It evokes certain feelings and adds visual appeal to your presentation as a whole. Studies show that color also improves interest, comprehension, and retention. It should be a careful consideration, not an afterthought.

You don't have to be a graphic designer to use color well in a presentation. What I do is look for palettes I like, and then find ways to use them in the presentation. There are a number of tools for this, like Adobe Color , Coolors , and ColorHunt , just to name a few. After finding a palette you enjoy, consider how it works with the presentation you're about to give. Pastels, for example, evoke feelings of freedom and light, so they probably aren't the best choice when you're presenting quarterly earnings that missed the mark.

It's also worth mentioning that you don't need to use every color in the palette. Often, you can get by with just two or three, though you should really think through how they all work together and how readable they'll be when layered. A simple rule of thumb here is that contrast is your friend. Dark colors work well on light backgrounds, and light colors work best on dark backgrounds.

Spend some time in the Slide Sorter before you finish your presentation. By clicking the four squares at the bottom left of the presentation, you can take a look at multiple slides at once and consider how each works together. Alternatively, you can click "View" on the ribbon and select "Slide Sorter."

Are you presenting too much text at once? Move an image in. Could a series of slides benefit from a chart or summary before you move on to another point?

It's here that we have the opportunity to view the presentation from beyond the single-slide viewpoint and think in terms of how each slide fits, or if it fits at all. From this view, you can rearrange slides, add additional ones, or delete them entirely if you find that they don't advance the presentation.

The difference between a good presentation and a bad one is really all about preparation and execution. Those that respect the process and plan carefully---not only the presentation as a whole, but each slide within it---are the ones who will succeed.

This brings me to my last (half) point: When in doubt, just buy a template and use it. You can find these all over the web, though Creative Market and GraphicRiver are probably the two most popular marketplaces for this kind of thing. Not all of us are blessed with the skills needed to design and deliver an effective presentation. And while a pre-made PowerPoint template isn't going to make you a better presenter, it will ease the anxiety of creating a visually appealing slide deck.

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Do You Have What It Takes to Give a Great Presentation?

• Michael Foley

Three skills anyone can learn.

Great presentations are all about how well you engage your audience. Here are three ways to do that:

• Be balanced: Strike the right balance between structure and improvisation during your presentation. Rather than preparing your content in a narrative form, take the time to segment it by topic. Leave room to respond to your audience’s immediate needs, even if that means going off script for a while.
• Be generous: You goal should be to offer your audience something of value. Let this  principle guide the content you choose to present.
• Be human: Rehearse to familiarize yourself with your content, but do not memorize it. If you go blank for a moment, don’t apologize and act flustered, just pause, take a breath, collect your thoughts and continue on. Your audience wants you to be relatable.

Have you ever seen a really great presentation? Honestly, they’re pretty rare.

• Michael Foley is an educator and coach, and founder of Clarity Centra l, a communications training and consulting firm based in Chicago. He is also an adjunct lecturer of leadership at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

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A teacher’s PowerPoint presentation is one way to share content with students that’s different from lecturing or teaching from the textbook.

And if a PowerPoint is put together correctly, it can be an effective way of reinforcing certain content to students so that they’re better able to retain it. What’s more is that teachers can print and distribute the PowerPoint presentation or post it online so students can go back and access it as reference material. However, if it’s not put together correctly, a PowerPoint presentation can disengage and make students bored.

So how should teachers go about putting together an effective PowerPoint presentation? For starters, it should be simple. But just because it’s simple doesn’t mean it can’t also be fun. Here’s a look at five tips that teachers can use to spruce up their PowerPoint presentations and make them an effective teaching tool.

Highlight a take home message

A PowerPoint presentation should be basic, simple and not distracting. It should also focus on keywords and a take home message. For example, always be sure to include a summary slide of what the presentation is intending to accomplish as well as a table of contents on the different topics that will be covered in the program. The summary slide serves as the main topic and what students should learn after viewing the presentation. Then, at the end of the PowerPoint presentation, teachers should include another summary slide, going over everything that was just covered and, again, highlighting the main point. Bottom line: keep PowerPoint presentations simple, but make sure they have a purpose and make sure that the purpose is made clear.

Add pictures

We’ve already gone over how a good PowerPoint presentation should always have a focus on what it intends to accomplish and it should always contain a take home message. Teachers can reinforce this take home message with pictures, charts, symbols and other images. In fact, sometimes it’s better to have more pictures than text in a PowerPoint presentation. Images work to reinforce a main point or message. Teachers typically will just share this content with their class, so they can pull images straight from the Internet. However, for teachers who are making more public and widespread presentations, copyright law will need to be considered.

Just as how pictures can help reinforce a main point or support content, so can videos. And studies say that students enjoy watching videos and retain information from them well, especially if the video is engaging, interesting and informative. Teachers can embed videos right from YouTube or from their desktops to complement a PowerPoint presentation.

Nothing turns off a class like a poorly put together PowerPoint presentation, so teachers should always be sure to do a quick rehearsal before they present it to the class. While testing it, make sure that all the images load up on the slides, that videos load up properly and that audio works, too. Also, it’s important for teachers to make sure that there’s a way to connect their computer, or upload anything that’s storing the PowerPoint presentation, to a larger TV monitor or projector screen so the whole class doesn’t have to huddle around a computer screen to view it. Teachers should also make sure that any text can be read clearly and that the color scheme is good.

Make it fun

A PowerPoint presentation can be an innovative way of teaching. Generally speaking, it’s a more interesting and engaging way for students to learn than the typical lecture is. Teachers should embrace this method of teaching and have fun with it. Throw in some jokes, possibly some funny pictures and be sure to get creative with presentations. The more fun that teachers have in putting together a presentation, the more fun students will get out of it. And as we previously noted, the more students enjoy a lecture, presentation or activity, the more likely they are to retain the information.

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8 Tips to Power-Up Your Classroom Presentations

Last month, I attended a Back to School Night for parents, sitting through presentation after presentation by teachers, some with slides that helped make their presentation a delight to listen to, and others . . . well, that's why I'm writing this blog post.

The goal of a classroom presentation is to aid you in effectively conveying information in a way that allows students (or their parents) to remember what you said. Unfortunately, for some, the presentation becomes a crutch, and they begin to rely on the slides to tell their story, rather than to help them tell the story.

I've been creating presentations using software like PowerPoint and KeyNote for 20 years, and I've learned a lot about how to most effectively communicate. Here's what I've found.

1. Use as Many Slides as You Need

It's a common myth that better presentations use fewer slides. This is simply not the case. I once sent an education conference presentation to the organizers so they could preview it in advance of my speaking. They wrote back, concerned that my 45-minute presentation had 116 slides. I looked it over and realized they were right! I revised it and sent a presentation with 135 slides back to them. I finished my talk with 5 minutes to spare -- just enough time to take questions -- and the presentation was a huge success.

The number of slides in your presentation is irrelevant. What matters is how well your slides communicate and how much time you spend talking about each slide. Spending five minutes on five slides will almost always be more engaging to your students than spending five minutes on a single slide, even when the information is exactly the same.

In the movie Amadeus , the Emperor of Austria complains to Mozart that his music has "too many notes." Mozart responds, "There are just as many notes as are required. Neither more nor less." Use as many slides as you need to make your point. No more. No less.

2. Minimize Verbosity

Your slides are there to support what you are saying, not to say it for you. Keep your word count low, and only place one main point on a slide, plus three to five sub-points if absolutely needed. Remember tip #1 above -- don't be afraid to use more slides. They're free! Also, the language in your slides doesn't need to be in complete sentences. Pare the text to as few words as possible, using what's there only to emphasize and reinforce -- not replace -- the words coming out of your mouth.

3. Maximize Visuals

Photos, figures and icons work as visual memory triggers. They help your students remember what it is you're saying. Any time you can add a visual that helps illustrate or reinforce the points you're making in your slides, you should use it. One great way to do this on the cheap is to use public domain or creative commons photos you can find on Flickr or Google .

4. Reduce Noise

Many teachers like to add banners, headers, footers, page numbers and more noise to their slides. Unless the information needs to be on every slide for a vital reason (which is rare), you should remove it. All these redundant elements do is create distractions from the content of your slides. I find this to be especially true of page numbers. Imagine if a movie included a time code at the bottom, constantly reminding you how long you had been watching. All this does is serve to take the viewer out of the moment. Page numbers in slides really don't provide any useful information -- they just remind your students how long they've been watching.

Pursuant to tips #1 and #2, you're not going to win awards by cramming the most content on the fewest slides. Make text and visuals as large as you can. Not only does this make them easier to see and read, but larger images and text make a greater impact to aid memory. There's nothing wrong with filling an entire slide with a photo, and then placing text right on top. You may have to use a transparent background immediately behind the text so that it's clearly readable, but the overall effect is almost always more memorable than just some text beside an image.

6. Highlight What You Are Talking About

While you are presenting, your students may be momentarily distracted taking notes, thinking about what you are saying, glancing out the window, possibly even daydreaming. When they refocus on your slides, though, they need to quickly pick back up where you are, or you risk losing them again.

• Use contrast or call-outs to clearly show the area of the slide you are talking about.
• Reveal bullet points or table rows one at a time so that the last one visible is the one you are talking about.
• Use arrows, circles or other pointers to show what you are referencing in specific parts of an illustration, photo or graph.
• Animate and reveal parts of illustrations and graphs (where possible) to build your story rather than showing everything at once.
• Use bold type or different colors to highlight the keywords in any lengthy text.

7. Transition Changes

Humans suffer from an affliction called change blindness -- we have a hard time seeing changes unless there is a clear transition between the states. This is especially a problem in presentations where slides may look very much alike. Most programs include transitions that can be used between slides or on elements in the slides themselves.

My favorite transition is the cross-dissolve -- where the first slide fades down while the next slide fades up -- but different transitions can help illustrate points in your presentation. Are you talking about combustion or the fire of London? Use a flame transition. Talking about photography or Hollywood movies? Use the flashbulb transition. Even "cheesy" transitions help overcome change blindness and aid student memory at the same time.

8. Repeat Yourself Redundantly

It’s OK to repeat the same slide more than once -- especially when using images -- if you are reminding students of an earlier point. Obviously, this is not a license to be monotonous. However, if you want to tie separate ideas together, emphasize a point or splash in a little comic relief, it's perfectly fine to repeat a slide.

Bonus Tip: Make it Funny!

There's little doubt that emotional responses can aid memory. While it can be difficult to apply this power in a classroom slide presentation, humor is easy enough, and adding a bit of levity to your presentations at the right points can work to give students vital memory hooks.

Remember, the point of presentation slides is not to replace you as the teacher, but to help your students understand and remember what you are teaching. Overwhelming them with too much information can be just as harmful as underwhelming them with too little.

Table of Contents

3 principles of effective presentations.

Last month I had an opportunity to write a 20-page booklet for ATD entitled PowerPoint: Your Co-facilitator .

Since then, a number of friends and colleagues have asked me to boil the booklet down into the top five or ten tips that lead to effective PowerPoint presentations . As I reflected on that question, I think there are three guiding principles that can make any PowerPoint deck better. And these principles have very little to do with conventional advice such as “bullets kill, so eliminate bullet points” or “only use three lines of text, no more than 8 words per line, and no smaller than 36 point font”. My principles have little to do with the need to hone your graphic design skills, either.  

Principle 1: Before you open PowerPoint, plan.

All too often, when someone is asked to deliver a presentation, they immediately open PowerPoint. They get their thoughts down. They may tweak a few things. Then that becomes their presentation and the audience is stuck watching a slide deck that is content-heavy and not very engaging.

Instead, I suggest that presenters do not reflexively open PowerPoint, but rather open a Word document or even eschew technology altogether and grab a tablet of paper and a pencil and use the following steps:

• Sketch out the main points.
• Decide how best to visually represent those points using PowerPoint (or whatever presentation software you choose).
• Tell your visual story with your slides as you serve as a sort of presentation tour guide, narrating the experience for your audience.

To help with this process, here is a storyboard template . Another post illustrates the evolution of a slide from concept to final imagery.

Principle 2: Draw attention only to the information to which you want your audience to pay attention.

Sometimes bulleted lists are the best way to share information. You do not, however, need to share the whole list at once. A simple adjustment to slides wherein you animate your bullet points and reveal them one at a time can help your audience stay focused on you . Otherwise, your audience will be reading all the information on your slide and not really paying any attention to you.

When it comes to charts and graphs – whether the information is fairly simple or if it’s a complex data set – two tips can be helpful:

• Make sure the title of the slide has meaning. Instead of “Annual Employee Turnover” as the title to your slide, try something that draws attention to the point you’d like to make, such as: “Employee Turnover Is Down 27% From Last Year”.
• If there is a specific data point you’d like the audience to pay attention to on a bar graph or in a chart, highlight it in a different color. When you can avoid making your audience work too hard to interpret the data on your slide, they’ll pay more attention to you and the points you make verbally.

Principle 3: Let your audience interact with your content.

Effective PowerPoint presentations are not necessarily a one-way form of communication. If you want to take the pulse of your audience about a certain topic before you launch into your brilliant discourse (or if you simply want to make sure they’re still following along), embed an interactive poll into your deck and insist that your audience use their smartphones to engage with your presentation (since they may be using their smartphones anyway to check email or post on Instagram). PollEverywhere is a service (starting with free pricing, though for larger audiences there is a fee-for-service model) that allows you to easily embed such polling into your deck.

Instead of dictating the order in which you present your content, you can also ask your audience for things on their mind and then reveal that content Family Feud-style by using these tips .

Of course, Jeopardy-style review games have long-since been used in the training room. Here is a Jeopardy-inspired PowerPoint template which can be used in the training room.

These are three guiding principles for making any presentation more engaging. What is your advice for effective PowerPoint presentations? I’d love to hear your PowerPoint tips, tricks and ideas for engagement in the comment section.

Brian Washburn

Brian has over 25 years of experience in Learning & Development including the last 7 as CEO of Endurance Learning.

Brian is always available to chat about learning & development and to talk about whether Endurance Learning can be your training team’s “extra set of hands”.

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How to Create an Effective Lesson Plan Presentation

Regardless of the subject or content you’re teaching, having a lesson plan in place prepares you for class by offering detailed guidelines for the session. The lesson plan doesn’t have to be lengthy or complex—it just needs to include elements about what you’re teaching, the method of presenting this material, and what objective and goals you wish your students to achieve as part of the curriculum.

Why Lesson Plans Are Important

It’s crucial for teachers to prepare their lessons in advance and implement the best teaching approaches. Attending a session without a lesson plan can be counterproductive for both students and teachers. Without the right preparation beforehand, classes can end up being unproductive or confusing.

Below are a few reasons why you should consider lesson planning:

Lesson Planning is Handy for Classroom Management

Developing the lesson plan from the learning objectives provides flexibility in adapting to different teaching methods and classroom management techniques. For instance, hybrid or online classes require a different delivery approach from the traditional classes, which means making modifications to any existing plans. With the right foresight and plan in place, classes can stay on topic and effective. Such circumstances underscore how crucial lesson plans are in ensuring that the class runs smoothly, regardless of the learning environment.  

Lesson Planning Creates Student Success

Various studies have shown that students benefit immensely from and appreciate well-structured lessons. Thus, success is more likely when students engage and show interest in the material being taught. Using a curriculum guide, teachers can develop valuable lesson plans based on specific objectives and goals (what’s intended for students to learn). 

​​Lesson Planning Is Central to Teacher Success

Teachers’ success is, to some extent, pegged on students’ success. Besides that, the documents you develop as part of the lesson planning process are often part of your assessment by school administrators. What’s more, as you advance your teaching career, your lesson plans serve as a repository for your expanding body of knowledge. Thus, the significance of lesson planning cannot be overlooked when it comes to advancing your career as an educator.

Lesson Planning is Vital in Student Assessment

Lastly, lesson plans turn the learning sessions into clear objectives for students and a way to gauge their understanding of the subject matter. One notable benefit of the lesson plan is tailoring the assessment to a particular objective while considering students’ specific needs. You can use common assessment methods such as quizzes, tests, and homework assignments.

How to Write a Lesson Plan

Lesson plans include different sections that clarify questions students might have about the subject on hand. What are the lesson objectives? What subjects will be covered during the session? How long will the course take?

• Introduction – As the lesson commences, it’s good to have a concise yet vivid introduction about what the lesson will cover. The ideal practice is to create a memorable title for every lesson to create a general understanding of the learning material students will be interacting with.
• **Lesson Objectives –**This section is critical as it allows the students to ascertain each lesson. When it comes to objectives, it is crucial to consider the acquired skills you expect the students to gain by the end of the session. Each objective should be measurable and actionable; meaning after every session, students should be able to apply what they’ve learned.
• Learning Activities – This should be a detailed account of how each activity will lead the class to achieve its predetermined goals. To create valuable activities, consider how each learning activity fits each objective, and the requirements students need.
• Practice – Practices are primarily intended to assess students’ comprehension of the material and aid in memorizing what they have learned in class. Therefore, it is crucial to include this in the lesson plan so that assessments can always be done at the appropriate time.

Today, lesson planning has been made less time-consuming and easier, thanks to smart whiteboards for the classroom . A digital whiteboard like the Vibe Board Pro provides unmatched performance that shows you know your craft and are way ahead of the pack.

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How Smart Whiteboards Simplify Lesson Plan Creation and Presentation

Not only does using a smart whiteboard make learning accessible , it’s also a great way of enhancing and enriching your lesson plans with interactive activities for the class. Smart whiteboards function as a touch screen for all; during class sessions, you and your students can use it as a digital whiteboard to create a space where students’ engagement, knowledge, and teamwork are appreciated.

While the smart whiteboard aids in making your lesson more engaging, interactive, and educational, you as the teacher can still customize your teachings to what you want them to be. This helps in foiling any hitches in your lesson presentation and makes switching from one topic to another seamless.

Below are more specific ways how smart whiteboards make your lesson plan presentation better:

Take Advantage of Built-in Templates

Once you invest in a smart whiteboard, make sure to take advantage of the wide variety of built-in lesson planning templates. You can use these templates to improve lesson plans while leveraging the technology associated with smart whiteboards. Even better, these templates can be easily customized for every lesson plan and cover different subject matters, allowing you to create new lesson plans without always starting from scratch quickly. How cool is that?

Organize and Present Lesson Plans Better

Smart whiteboards combine the power of the traditional whiteboard and a TV/projector into one hub, allowing you to write on the board while concurrently projecting it to the classroom. This allows you to conduct lesson plan presentations on a larger scale while also letting students see what’s going on.

For instance, if you’re presenting on an extensive topic involving multiple subtopics, a smart whiteboard will help you walk students through each subtopic with ease. Begin with the presentation divided into primary or main sections, highlight key definitions, and add infographics and videos to ensure that every student understands the tiniest detail.

Additionally, you can get students involved in the lesson plan presentation by asking questions, polling them on key points, or allowing them to follow along on their tablets or laptops.

Record Lesson Plan Presentations

Another benefit of using smart whiteboards in the classroom is that a lesson plan presentation can be recorded and accessed long after the session is over. This allows your students to access the material on their own time.

Final Words: Creating a Lesson Plan Presentation

Lesson plan presentation offers students the first interaction with the material they will learn. Take your time, appreciate the process, and create an attractive and comprehensive lesson plan that will encourage your students to have deep and thoughtful learning experiences. Even better, all of this can be made easier with smart whiteboard technology. Leave the spiral notebooks and sticky notes at home. A smart whiteboard is all you need.

What is the presentation stage in lesson planning?

Presentation is usually the core of the lesson plan. During this stage, theteacher introduces the topic and the key subject matter the students need to master. Presenting with smart whiteboards is exceedingly easy and less time-consuming.

What are the 5 steps in lesson planning?

The five steps are:

• Objective: A learning concept or objective is introduced.
• Warm-up: Revise the previous lesson
• Presentation: Present the material using suitable tools and techniques.
• Practice: Students try to apply what they have learned.
• Assessment: Evaluate whether the objectives were achieved

How does lesson planning help teachers?

Planning lessons in advance allows teachers to arrive at class each day prepared to introduce new concepts and facilitate engaging discussions rather than improvising as they go. In other words, without a lesson plan, teachers may be left scrambling, making students lose interest in the material to be learned.

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