One Reason to Give Presentations

I really enjoy giving presentations to other educators, it's probably related to why I love being a teacher. The major difference is that when I present to my colleagues they generally want to learn what I'm trying to teach and this makes it even more fun. This is not why I'm writing today. I'm writing today because I just had an epiphany. I discovered another reason to love giving presentations.

My new thought came while preparation to lead a workshop in the use of video analysis in teaching. It's going to be a six hour long workshop.* Originally I was mainly going to focus on the how, but with six hours I have more than enough time to present the why as well. It was while getting these thoughts in order that the light bulb went on.

I have to think of well reasoned justifiable reasons to present to other physics teachers to convince them to try what I'm teaching. Do I have them? Is there research to support them? Or is it all just fluff and hand waving meant to grab attention. I have reasons, but I'm not an educational researcher, but physics education is one area where there is lots of research, so I've been told. So I went to the internet and my bookshelf.** It turns out, that according to research, my gut feelings were right. I'm not totally surprised by this as I go to lots of meetings and talk with lots of people. All of these interactions added to my own classroom experience have led to my "gut feelings".

Anyway, I'm not writing to say, "Woo, Hoo I was Right!" I'm writing because the process of researching and thinking about justifying the power behind the programs and approaches I will present has caused me to think of about half a dozen new labs and/or demos I can use in my own classroom.*** These will get written up for my presentation and will go into my ever expanding bag of tricks to use.

While writing this I just realized what I'm doing when I prepare a presentation. I reflect on my teaching. Back in ed-college "they" often talked about the power of reflection. Unfortunately I don't carve out enough time to do this, but in preparing to lead workshops or presentations I have to make the time.

*It will be run SE Michigan in the spring of 2010. Let me know if you want more information.

**My physics teacher mentor left me all his books when he retired.

***Damn that's a long sentence. I wonder if it's grammatically correct