Presentation Skills for Economics Students

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Presentation Skills for Economics Students

• Judith Piggott
• Oxford Brookes University

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Aims

• Improve presentation skills of Economics Students
• Why? - 3 reasons
• Assessment poor quality presentations. Often
  content was reasonable but it was difficult to
  dig it out from the presentation.
• Feedback from Alumni presentation skills were
  one of the most useful learned but more help was
  needed to improve the skill
• Employability increasingly the job market
  requires confidence in presenting ideas
• Most videos were management training and
  inappropriate

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Background

• Answer?
• Bring in professional actors
• 1 hour workshop last year effect?
• Significant!
• General skills improved but big factor was some
  imagination was used.
• But this is not always feasible eg money and
  size of class.so

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Website

• Answer
• Draw on the actors skills in presentations
• Bringing in Economic content eg Balance of
  Payments
• Using students as main actors
• So.On the website will be
• a) A film based on Sliding Doors movie eg a
  good and bad presentation by the same set of
  people, cut in together.
• This is 17 minutes long and can be used either
  complete for a seminar/lecture (on a DVD or from
  website direct)

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Website.

• b) Together with the DVD will be powerpoint
  slides highlighting the key features which can be
  used by lecturers with/instead of the DVD (and
  can be used into handouts of course).
• c) The slides and the powerpoint will also be put
  together in a way that highlights the points
  whilst the DVD plays. Something to use either in
  a lecture or for students to look on their own.
• A sample.

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Structure of the Presentation

• The Introduction
• Sets the scene
• Defines the terms
• What is the Balanceof Payments?
• Then.

http//uk.youtube.com/watch?vIObxv0L_ZPE
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Powerpoint

• Check with lecturer first
• Is PowerPoint allowed?
• Keep it simple
• Dont let it detract from the presentation
• Dont put too much information on the slides
• Keep it relevant and necessary

http//uk.youtube.com/watch?vlIYvOYvSQAY
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Presentation content

• Introduction
• Key points to think about in a presentation
  (actors workshop)
• Group preparation
• Data Preparation/presentation
• Powerpoint
• The Presentation itself
• The start
• content
• Group behaviour/mobile phones!
• Voice projection
• The ending
• Questions

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Other elements

• 10 Top tips for presentation skills
• Frequently asked questions (with answers)
• Any other ideas?