How can you help students develop public speaking and presentation skills in a virtual learning environment?

Practice Regularly: Speak often to build confidence. Virtual Platforms: Use tools like Zoom for practice. Feedback Loop: Get feedback from peers or teachers. Visual Aids: Include visuals to support points. Structured Content: Plan speeches with a clear structure. Engaging Tone: Speak in a lively and interesting way. Eye Contact: Look at the camera for connection. Manage Nervousness: Take deep breaths to calm nerves. Interactive Elements: Involve the audience with questions. Record and Review: Record yourself and review for improvement.

Selecting the right platform is the most important part of the virtual teaching process and also depends on learning objectives, the size of the student's group, and the level of interaction such as audio-only or audio-visual. Further, ease in the use of the platform or access to features such as recording sessions, chatting during a session, and the number of allowed participants in a meeting also play an important role.

Offering and receiving feedback is a valuable contribution (a present) to personal development for a person. Our input, conveyed through feedback, subtly shapes the growth of others. It's not just about positive or negative feedback; instead, it serves as an output that mirrors our efforts, guiding improvement in future work. Kindly exchange presents of feedback with one another.

Strategies for Supporting Online Presentation and Oratory Skills Development: Encourage regular practice to build confidence and familiarity. Promote self-review through recording, allowing identification and correction of improvement areas. Offer constructive feedback on organization, clarity, visual aids, and overall delivery. Guide nonverbal communication for enhanced impact. Provide technical support to ensure proficiency with online tools. Advise the use of visual aids to support content and engage the audience. Suggest audience interaction techniques for increased engagement. Facilitate peer feedback sessions to foster collaborative learning. Offer additional resources for continued skill enhancement.

It is so important to offer this work for students! Anymore, so many of my presentations, including job talks, workshops, keynotes, are all offered virtually. Supporting students growth in learning how to create interactive and engaging presentations in the online context is a key skill and is very different from presenting in person.

If I am teaching a batch of students, I would ask the students to provide a recap of the topic we covered in the last lecture. I will assign them a topic to discuss from the previous lecture. The environment needs to be friendly and comfortable to encourage students to speak in front of their peers. This method will be effective if the teacher is friendly and supportive, allowing students to make mistakes without fear of judgment.

I would agree with Rushika K. and would add on that students could record the recaps and engage in conversations maybe in small groups to offer kudos and improvement feedback. These groups could even then create a shared presentation about a best practice from their group. Make this culminating presentation available online and the students then get to share their experiences and expertise to support others in this area, give them increased confidence, and offer an addition to their resumes with a virtual presentation about virtual presentations.