The following items are required of all minilectures, in order to maintain a good quality of presentation and learning in the classroom.

1. Use overhead slides or laptop for your presentations, not the chalkboard. The chalkboard can be used if you plan an interactive portion in which you are getting input from the audience on an example or problem. Slides may be done in Powerpoint, word, notepad, xfig, or other computer-aided form, or they may be handwritten in neat handwriting. You may also xerox and cut and paste examples from textbooks rather than recreating them by hand.

2. The font size on slides should be at least 15 for readability.

3. You should bring copies of your slides for the entire class the day of your presentation so the audience can take notes on your presentation easily. You should double side them to save paper and put multiple slides on a page if possible (if they are done on a computer system that makes this easy to do.)

You are not allowed to ask the secretaries in the CIS department for slides, pens, or xeroxing for you. You may use the department xerox machine yourself for the xeroxing of these slides as long as you say you are putting together handouts for teaching the class.

1. A good guideline is 1 slide per 2 minute interval. For a 10 minute talk, that is 5-6 slides. You want to hit the main points of our designated topic first, and then fill in if there is still time.

2. Slides are useless if they are unreadable or crowded. Full sentences should rarely be used on slides. Instead, phrases that indicate the key points that you want to discuss should appear on the slide. An outline style is much better than paragraphs. Your slides should use large, neatly printed letter size. Be sure that each slide has a title at the top that says what is on the slide. (If you are worried that you will forget to say something, write it on a separate sheet of paper that you use during your presentation rather than crowding it onto slides.

3. Pictures/figures are worth a thousand words. Examples through pictures can significantly aid understanding and keep an audience’s attention. So, please incorporate figures whenever possible.

4. Take on the challenge of capturing your audience’s attention, but don’t lose the main goal of the minilecture, which is to teach the material. You should feel free to involve your audience interactively as much as possible to keep them interested and paying attention.

5. Practice your minilecture aloud to yourself or colleagues to gain confidence and check on the timing of your minilecture.

6. Eye contact: You should glance around the room, making eye contact with various people. The talk should not be directed to the ceiling, floor, slide projector, screen, or only a small portion of the class. If you do not want to look at anyone, just look over their heads.

7. Voice: Be sure to talk at a pace that the audience can follow. Most of us tend to talk quickly when we are nervous. You need to consciously be aware of how fast you are talking. Be sure to talk loud and clear enough that people in the back of the room can hear and understand you. If you think people are going to have trouble understanding your English, talk slower and louder than normal.