Students need to be responsible for all of the material during group presentations and engage the class in discussion about their topic during the presentation.
Students prepare and review only the information that they personally create for their slides during a presentation and few students participate during audience discussion.
Students will still create a presentation in a small group. Students will be required to present the entire presentation on their own to a group of three to five other students and be asked to create and discuss three discussion questions about the topic they are presenting to discuss during their presentation. This should hold students accountable for all of the content in the presentation and increase the number of students participating in the group discussions.
I will have students complete one group presentation at the start of the semester to determine how many students felt prepared to present the entire presentation (I will collect this data with a survey). Later in the semester I will have students present in small groups and then fill out the survey again. Finally, I will compare and post the data.
Group presentations have always been a part of my classroom, but after watching numerous presentations where students aren’t prepared to present or engaged while viewing the presentation, I realized I needed to make a change. My hope is that by having students present in smaller groups and present the entire slideshow, students will have a better understanding of the material they are presenting and their classmates will pay closer attention to the presentation. I hope that the discussion in a small group environment will also encourage all students to discuss the proposed questions.