In order to prepare the participants for giving presentations in front of a mixed audience, two presentation skills courses are offered free of charge. Workshop 1 is a general course on presentation methods, which takes one and a half days. In Workshop 2, participants will learn how to explain a complicated subject in a very short time, in a so-called "Elevator Pitch". This course will take one day. Both courses will be held in English and are open for READi Workshop participants if they have handed in an abstract. Descriptions of the courses can be found below.
Workshop 1:
"Presentation Skills"
Takes place on 13.03.2014, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and 14.03.2014, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the CFEL building, seminar room 4.
Course description:
This workshop aims at helping PhD students to improve their personal presentation skills. The offered course is a combination of a lecture followed by a practical part with exercises, which turn the acquired knowledge into personal experience.
The specific topics are, among others: How to structure a presentation so that the audience can follow easily, designing slides, making the best possible use of visual aids and technical equipment, dealing with interruptions, handling questions, keeping an eye on the time and the best way of finishing in a hurry, common mistakes, what to do when nervous, how to give proper feedback, and many more. Furthermore, non-native speakers of English are given advice on spoken language and a number of practical phrases, for example, for transitions. The exercise part will deal with posture, breathing, voice and body language.
The most important part of the workshop, though, are practice presentations given by the participants. They will be video taped by the lecturer, to allow for individual feedback and to get the chance to watch oneself on tape. The presentations are then repeated on the following day and recorded again. Experience shows that the vast majority of students improves significantly from the first to the second round and has fewer problems with being nervous.
Trainer:
Kerstin Meyer-Ross was born in Berlin and grew up, studied, worked, and lived among other places in Scotland, Ireland and Spain. After graduating in 2000, she worked as a coordinator of the International Max Planck Research School for Computer Science and started teaching soft skills to students and professors. Currently, she is a soft skills teacher at the University of Applied Science in Dresden and at many other well-known scientific institutions and organizations. Her workshops for PhD students include presentation skills, scientific posters, as well as time and stress management.
Workshop 2:
"Presenting Oneself: Elevator Pitch for Doctoral Candidates"
Takes place on 13.03.2014, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the CFEL building,seminar room 5.
Content description:
The goal of this course is the professionalization of presenting oneself using elevator pitch techniques in English. Elevator pitches are short descriptions of a complex topic as, for example, one's research topic. In addition, the course especially focuses on vocabulary and styles required for an elevator pitch in a scientific milieu.
After the seminar the scientists participating should be able to present themselves in a professional, facilitating elevator pitch in English. The pitches can be used as an integral part of job interviews, science conference networking, funding interviews, or poster presentations. It is also possible to integrate the elevator pitch in a presentation. Specific areas of emphasis in the course include style and lexical range for a pitch, language and cultural difference, voicework, gestures, stance, audience contact and rhetoric skills.
Resource materials and resource strategies for verifying the specificity and correctness of special vocabulary for a pitch will be made available to the participants and discussed. The seminar is very hands-on, meaning that the scientists will be expected to practice new skills in the seminar and will be given specific feedback and tips on strategies to improve their work.
Trainer: Dipl.-Psych. Deborah Prétat-Klofski gives seminars on presentation of science, writing of scientific publications for students, graduates, doctoral and senior scientists. She is the head of the Department for English for Business, Econimics and International Relations at the Hamburg School of Business Administration. For more information see Deborah's website.
