Preparing for the 4-6 minute Talk
Right after my pitch, I signed up for the first day possible, because I really didn't want this assignment to be lagging on my back for another month, and I was really excited to present.
I decided to take a break for a week after my pitch because I had been pretty busy the weeks before, and I had around a month before my TED-like Talk. Our teacher decided to give the TED-like talk a name: "TTalk", so for now on I will be referring to the talk as the TTalk. After the week-long break, I was perfectly in the zone and ready to start preparing.
Our teacher, Mrs. Daniel told us to make an "Action Plan" so we could check off each time we completed a portion, and so we could have small individual due dates along the way. This was to make sure we were on track at all times. At first, I definitely had second thoughts about creating this because I am usually the type of person who will do a whole project in a full day or two, instead of spacing it out and doing it one step at a time. It was a little bit hard to stay on track with it at the beginning because I definitely wasn't used to it, but as I continued, I realized that the action plan really helped dramatically. It made me feel much less stressed and made me stay on one task at a time, not several different things. My action plan looked something like this:
Research different info that I may want to include- Due by November 10
Decide on the main points I want to include in TTalk- November 12
Think about my aid… Will I have a video? slideshow?, etc.- Decide by November 14th
Write script for TTalk- November 17
Create slideshow with pictures- November 18
Start practicing TTalk as much as possible until November 23
This was so beneficial that I think I will definitely continue using this for other assignments that I complete in grade eight, and (if I remember) high school. If you are ever doing a somewhat long term assignment that takes longer than a month, I would highly recommend including an action plan in the procedure.
Everything on my action plan ran smoothly, except for the fact that I needed much more information (small details) than what I had researched in step #1, so I researched more in step #4 as I was writing the talk.
Aside from having an action plan, something that really helped me prepare, was watching successful real TED Talks. I paid close attention to how they hooked the audience, how they concluded, and what their slides looked like. This really helped me with mine, because I could get really get the feel what a real TED Talk sounds/looks like, even though mine is only in a classroom. When you are the first presenter and haven't seen anyone else's yet, it's useful to watch professionally created presentations.
When I was at the final stage of practicing my TTalk, I took a moment to think, and found something so unique about the whole process. I was so passionate about my topic because I actually got to choose what I wanted to learn about. This made me much more engrossed in the project, and I enjoyed every aspect of it. So far, this was one of the only classes that we have been able to choose a topic we want to explore, on a summative assignment. I encourage all of the teachers to start incorporating individualized learning and personal choice into their curriculums because it makes students that much more interested, and (from personal experience) when students are interested, they put much more effort into their work.
To sum things up, I really enjoyed preparing for my TTalk and because of my action plan, I think that I will be very prepared for when I present.
My next blog post will be about my opinion on other people's presentations, how I felt mine went, and other thoughts I had at the end of all the presentations.