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BC 628: Designing High-impact Presentations

Credit Hours: 3
Estimated Hours Per Week: 16

Overview

Presenting is about making ideas and information clear, relevant and understandable. It may also be about persuading, inspiring, and inciting an audience to act. Presentation and speaking skills are central to effective performance in almost all work circumstances today. Being able to present yourself and your ideas in the best possible light is critical to your professional success.

In this course, you will be applying conceptual and practical tools to produce polished and professional oral presentations. Through essay, forum discussion, and presentation assignments, you will become familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of a variety of presentation aids, experiment with using a variety of presentation aids, and examine the kinds of adaptations necessary to meet the needs of a specific audience through profiling.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

  • Describe specific behaviors associated with excellent public/presentational speaking in a variety of different business circumstances.
  • Identify the distinct attributes of an audience while building an audience profile for your presentations.
  • Assess your current skills and goals for improving performance as a public speaker/business presenter.
  • Outline the basic flow of a presentation logically and clearly to improve audience understanding.
  • Generate multiple options for depicting concepts and information, enhancing audience connections and furthering speaker credibility.
  • Determine when to use presentation aids and which aids/supports are most appropriate for a given speaking situation.
  • Prepare appropriate charts/graphs for data-driven material.
  • Describe strengths and weaknesses associated with virtual or teleconference presentations.
  • Analyze possible strategies to overcome barriers and enhance communication in a virtual presentation.
  • Demonstrate the principles of polished and professional presentation delivery in a capstone presentation.

Course Requirements

  • A webcam with microphone or digital video camera with microphone (preferred)
  • MovieMaker (Windows) or iMovie (Mac) (both free programs)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint or OpenOffice Impress (free)
  • QuickTime movie player

ENROLLMENT
To enroll in this course, please complete the online application.

Required Texts
BC 628 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore