I had quite a few people interested in my recent presentation on “Predictive modelling: Pitfalls and possibilities”, delivered at the 2014 Applied Physiology Conference for the National Institute Network. So…I decided to record a version of it for those who weren’t able to attend 🙂
Presenting
Biomechanics in Australian Sport: presentation at the Victorian Institute of Sport
Today, I am presenting at the Victorian Institute of Sport (VIS) on biomechanics in Australian sport. I’ll be chatting with a group of US college students who are visiting Australia and spending time at the VIS, gaining insights into sports science and life as an athlete. A different presentation than the researchy-type I’ve become used to delivering over the past few years…it’ll be great to tell a few stories and share interesting anecdotes of Aussie ingenuity in applied biomechanics 🙂 Check out my slides below:
Developing an Academic Presentation, Part 3: Presenting My “Saplings”
Stage: Initial draft >> Re-drafting
Progress to date: Slides drafted, two practice runs presenting to an audience.
One week to go until my conference presentation. I’ve been busy wrapping up teaching and marking commitments, so I haven’t had time to log as much of the recent presentation developments as I would like – rectifying that now!
Last Thursday, I had my first practice run with an audience. It was nice to throw the ideas out there in front of a group of sport science researchers from a variety of disciplines. The presentation was slightly over time. Key feedback was to emphasise and iterate the “so what?” messages, and to provide more background on why the T2minute method provides value over and above what current training load measures can do.
We had another practice run yesterday, which was an improvement on the first – always nice to be progressing! Still over my allotted time (I’ll be given 8 mins on the day, but spoke for 9 mins yesterday), so I’ve got to make some decisions about what is most important to convey in the short time span that I have. Happy with how my slides are looking at this stage; only small changes to make from here I should think.
Slides in progress…
Setting practice run dates always helps me to get my butt into gear. In a strange way, I almost like giving a half-finished presentation. Of course it’s scary to throw my ideas out into the world for criticism, when they are but saplings and are nowhere near fully formed. But I think embracing that fear and seeking out that challenge has helped me improve my capacity to take on feedback, to quickly re-draft, and in turn, more quickly produce a finished piece of work with high quality.
Developing an Academic Presentation, Part 2: Sketchnotes for Structure
Stage: Initial Draft
Progress to date: Drafting presentation structure and content.
I’m not a naturally linear thinker. So sketchnotes are a great way for me to get my thoughts down on paper without feeling restricted by headings and sequencing a flow of thoughts – I worry about all those structural components later. Here’s a quick sketchnote I did yesterday, to kick start my brain into thinking about the key messages I want to convey with my presentation.
Developing an Academic Presentation, Part 1: Documenting the Process
Can you imagine presenting to a crowd like this?! The horror…for presenter and the audience…
In about two months, I will be presenting at the Australian Conference of Science and Medicine in Sport, taking place as part of the be active 2012 Congress. Safe to say that I am pretty excited for this presentation (“The design and implementation of a novel method for quantifying training loads in elite rowing: the T2minute method”), because it is the first podium presentation of my PhD work at an external (read: non-Deakin) event.
As organised and meticulous as I am, I realised that I have not documented my workflow for developing a presentation, and so the idea was born to document my process of building a presentation “from scratch”. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be posting updates about each stage of the process – from the initial drafts, to practice runs, revising and refining, and finally the conference presentation itself. I hope the series will be insightful, both for myself in terms of increasing my awareness of things I do well and don’t do well, and also for other PhD students that might come across my blog. Would love to hear from others (students, early career researchers, established academics) about how you go about preparing a presentation of your research, so feel free to leave comments on this blog or send an email to jac [AT] jacquietran.com!
Stage: Initial Draft
Progress to date: Abstract accepted for podium presentation; yet to start preparing presentation (e.g., slides, delivery).
As with any research, there are so many stories to tell from the data. The craft in being an effective researcher is being able to identify and convey the salient messages, identifying the problems that make you go “Hmm…” and the solutions that make you go “Aha!”. So the task today is to begin brainstorming the key messages from my work.
And that can mean only one thing…
Time to get my sketchnotes on!
Hidden Labours 