Presentation Analysis ECC 510 Jennifer Dyck

The Power Point I chose to analyze is one I put together last February 2013. I was the leader of our
IBLT (Inquiry Based Learning Team). We met once a month to discuss the progress we were making on
our goal to improve student writing in the area of developing meaning in personal narrative writing. I am
very embarrassed as I look at that PowerPoint through my new lens, which includes the criteria of
Duartes Glance Test, her top 5 power point mistakes, and knowledge gleaned from her book,
Resonate Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences. My colleagues were likely entirely
uninspired and unmotivated toward change by the end of my presentation.
At the beginning of my presentation, I attempted to connect with my audience emotionally. I
had them think about their writing instruction, and connect to one of three cartoon characters. The
activity produced a lot of laughter, discussion and sharing out. It was an effective way to begin my
presentation. Unfortunately, it goes downhill from there.
The first thing I notice is that my slides contain all text with no visual supports to draw the eye
and focus attention. David JP Phillips, in his TEDx Talk, Death by PowerPoint suggests that we stick to
one message per slide. Many of my slides have more than one message. Looking at slide 7, for example,
I have 5 big ideas that are further divided into 2 subgroups. According to Phillips, this is way too much
information on one slide. Further, throughout my presentation, I remember reading directly from the
slides. The audience is not able to effectively read and listen to my voice at the same time, a process
Phillips refers to as redundancy. I should have kept the title of this slide as it was, then added a pertinent
visual. Simplifying the visual presentation of the slide would have allowed the audience to freely listen
to the information I was presenting and encourage them to draw on their own background knowledge.
Duarte speaks to the Top 5 Mistakes of a power point discussion. One of the top 5 mistakes is
asking too much of our slides. As an example, slide 5 contains a very detailed timeline. The font is so
small and the information so detailed, that the viewers would not be able to read it from where they

were sitting. On the slide, I left room for participants to fill in two columns that they would not have the
opportunity to do during my presentation. It would have made more sense for me to have put a hard
copy of that timeline on the table for groups to fill in and then open it up for discussion.
Duarte says presentations must have an ebb and flow, and what provides that movement is
contrast in content, texture, and delivery. In general, few of my slides in this presentation would pass
the Glance Test. I fail to keep it simple, there is little flow to each individual slide, there is minimal visual
contrast between the background and the text and there is little hierarchy on each page. Given that I
chose a consistent background and font, technically there is some unity between the pages. There is a
lot of white space on some pages, but not for the right reasons. Slide 9, for example, has a lot of white
space, but only because the font is very small, not because I did an adequate job of establishing a strong
visual message.
Durate also speaks of making your audience the hero in the storyline of your presentation. If the
presenter can successfully invite the audience into action toward a common goal where they have the
power to fix the problem, many audience members will be motivated to commit to the cause. My
slideshow had no hero, no identified complication or resolution. It was a boring outpouring of
information with an undertone of though shalt do this.
At the conclusion of our meeting, I remember feeling utterly uninspired for the task ahead, and
the feeling in the room was entirely mutual. I chalked it up to the time of year and that my fellow
teachers were feeling overwhelmed by their workload. I see it differently now. In spite of our workload, I
could have used that opportunity to inspire change and to bring about excitement around a common
goal. It really bothers me that I missed a pivotal opportunity for improving student learning. Moving
forward, however, the learning I have done through this process will forever change how I present in the
future.