Presentation hints

This is assorted hints about actually presenting.

Starting off

  • Don’t start off with tech details, say why this is important. Think of what the emotional (“coolness”) appeal is and start off with that.

  • Why will this be useful?

During the lessons

  • Take advantage of the mistakes/typos you make when teaching! When you do a mistake and get an error message and realize what you did wrong, explain what happened since this can offer valuable insights to learners.

  • Ask “do you do X?” where X is what you are teaching. Instead, ask “how do you do Y?”. The first question implies something you are doing wrong, the second is open-ended.

Exercise sessions

  • What to do during exercise sessions

  • Always go over the lesson with someone else the day before.

Try to stick to the material

  • Don’t try to show everything, show less, but show it clearly.

  • Try not to completely deviate from the material. Ideally, rather influence the material before you teach. Of course it is good to react to questions and to adapt the material to the audience, so sometimes an excursion can be very useful, but make clear that you then deviate from the script and be explicit about whether participants should follow what you do or only watch.

  • If you want to show some extra steps in the terminal, show them perhaps at the end of an exercise block to not “mess up” the exercise half-way and change it with respect to the material.

  • It is good to mention an anecdote or two but be careful about mentioning too much new jargon which only very few participants may relate to.

Wrap up

  • Say what you taught and why.

  • Say what comes next. Say where to get that.

  • Update the instructor’s guide and file issues for any problems you noticed.

  • Get instant feedback from your co-teachers and helpers (students too, if they offer any).

    • Consider making notes on a 4-way diagram of (content←→presentation) × (went well←→can be improved).