This message largely details
requirements for the NASP presentation element of the
Integrating Experience
component of the KSU specialist-level internship in school psychology. The purpose of this
element of the 'Integrating Experience' is to provide a real-life preparation for making
inservice/professional presentations. It also serves as a forum for
developing & then presenting a culminating professional 'product.'
Enrollment is expected during the Summer immediately prior to internship. If
after reading these comments you have questions about your presentation then
please don't hesitate to contact caven
By the time that Integrating Experience
arrives, you'll already have been provided with several opportunities to
access a copy of the NASP Convention proposal guidelines ('Call for
Papers') and will have seen prior students' presentation formats. At the
point of registration for the academic class associated with this step you be
only one month before the actual proposal must be postmarked! Thus, by
that point it's presumed that you have a well-developed outline already in
place. Consequently, the comments here are for planning & later
for last-minute,
fine-tuning of your ideas.
; however, several
practicalities will make it impossible to review all the proposal since it's
impossible for you to forward to me by e-mail the actual proposal
cover-sheet. Nonetheless, since I've a couple of decades of experience in
preparing proposals which get accepted (my own as well as those of former
KSU students) then I am confident that my fine-tuning suggestions
will only improve the chance that your proposal will get a favorable review.
Helpful information for
preparing to attend and/or exhibit at the Convention
- Call
for Presentations and Call for Workshops (PDF) Note:
This is a prior-year's format. The actual format changes
annually; however, the 'current' format is never published until
about 10-days after the prior year's Convention (that is, the
actual 'call' details for a Spring Convention get published in
May of the prior year and proposals are then due about 60-days
later). If you want to what a 'Call' looks like then this
is a sample ~~ but it won't necessarily be exactly the same as
your year.
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The information in this site needs to be read
with an actual 'Call for Papers' close by. I will provide the
basics of the NASP Convention proposal format and anticipated content, and
offer some suggestions on how to increase the probability that your paper
will be accepted. It's necessary to follow the requirements of the 'Call for
Papers' with slavish care to detail (i.e., they are
demands from NASP not
suggestions). Of course, whether or
not your proposal is accepted by NASP you're guaranteed of being accepted
to present as part of the KSU on-campus days (typically January of
the second semester of Internship), and so every effort expended will
surely have a personal payoff.
To summarize so far...During
your internship year you're expected to provide a presentation to
professional colleagues in school psychology ― preferably at the NASP
Convention ― on a content area in which you've developed an expertise.
The traditional ways in which 'Integrating Experience' participants demonstrate competency in delivering a
professional-quality inservice to school psychology colleagues have been two
fold: (1) A 50-minute on-campus seminar; and (2) a presentation at
the National Association of School Psychologists' Convention as part of the
scheduled program. The first of these forums will automatically be
scheduled for an on-campus I&A meeting; the latter involves you in developing a
proposal-submission for the NASP Program. There may even be an opportunity,
probably announced in the October issue of The Ohio School Psychologist,
for proposing a variant of your integrating experience paper at the OSPA
Spring Conference of your internship year.
NASP has essentially the same procedure every
year for the very competitive process of getting your paper proposal
accepted for the convention program. In years past from 75-100% of KSU
interns have managed to get their proposals accepted.
Three forces
have lead to such a relatively high "hit-rate":
- Interns' selection of topics which the
Program Selection Committee hope to see.
- Advance planning has meant that resources
can be gathered, and the proposal can undergo several refinements and
even "trial runs"; &
- Fine-tuning by Kent State University
faculty who've previously participated in NASP conventions.
Use the time you have left
prior to the NASP deadline to further refine your topic, proposal and
presentation ― based on where you are in this process. I am very
happy to meet to discuss topics and refine proposals.
The options in the proposal outline seem
greater in number than they are in reality. In fact, it is probably an
entire waste
of effort for you to make a proposal for a Mini-Skills Workshops or a
Colloquium. These are largely 'invited' and screened―based on Program
Committee members having seen the potential presenter at some earlier
professional forum.
That leaves the Poster and the Paper presentation. I strongly suggest that
you restrict yourself to these two options.
The
Convention theme varies each year. Consequently, whenever
you can combine a presentation that ...
- Highlights
empirically validated interventions for which there is evidence of
practitioner-endorsed enthusiasm,
- At the same time as
reflecting the focus of the Convention Theme ... then you have a greatly enhanced
your chance of being accepted on the Convention Program.
The comments are about preparing for
your NASP presentation; however, they are equally relevant whether you are presenting at
the Convention location or during the on-campus presentation at the University. In
each case you'll need to plan for preparing audiovisual support plus make
copies of your handout for the attendees. You may be wondering what works
best for displaying your talents in a presentation. Since both the NASP
Convention and the KSU 'on-campus' presentations are both based on a
classroom-format, then the first item to is to consider the best way of
making a visual impact with your information. My suggestions are threefold:
1. Despite how attractive a computer generated graphic-enhanced presentation
might be, it's probably best to leave this to others who have lots of
practice in using this format before audiences. 2. The Power-Point
presentation which looks great on your home screen is not always such a
'wow' if you're in an ill-lit hotel room, with uncertain electrical
connections, and no easy way of getting the computer to display an image on
a large screen. 3. Equally, I suggest that you avoid
preparing a presentation which uses a video playback unit. At NASP you'll
need to pay for the rental of the equipment yourself ― and the cost will
never be less than $200 ― regardless of how short is your video clip. You will NOT be
allowed to use your own electrical equipment that bring to the hotel (union
rules). In fact, I suggest
that you strenuously avoid use of anything other than the equipment provided
by NASP. For example, if you need a flip-chart then you'll need to
provide it yourself!
Despite all this, at this point I'll provide a
few comments about the ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF CERTAIN SELECT
VISUAL AIDS
Flipcharts/Posters
ADVANTAGES
- easy and inexpensive to make
and update
- portable and transportable
- continuously left in view of
the audience
- good for interaction with
the audience
DISADVANTAGES
- unsuitable for large groups
- anxiety-provoking for
facilitator with poor-handwriting or -spelling
- bulky to carry around
Slides
ADVANTAGES
- professional in appearance
- good for large groups
DISADVANTAGES
- formal and impersonal
- only shows well in the dark
or subdued lighting
- not good for discussion and
interaction
- more difficult to update
than other visual aids
- require special equipment
Video
ADVANTAGES
- professional in appearance
- good for large or small
groups
DISADVANTAGES
- more expensive than other
visual aids to make, and to show
- requires special equipment
- not good for discussion and
interaction
- requires accurate cueing
Overhead Transparencies
ADVANTAGES
- good for large groups
- easy to create, transport, &
update
- provide an informal
atmosphere
- open to interaction with
groups
DISADVANTAGES
- impermanent; they yellow
with age
- requires less common
equipment
Modified by Caven S. Mcloughlin from a
now-defunct WebPages originally found at
http://www.hcc.hawaii.edu/hccinfo/facdev/ComVisAids2
To
Summarize
~~ 1.
Practically speaking, you only have two choices
for visual aids (other than not using visual aids which is a
mistake in itself). The two choices are
35 mm. slides or overhead transparencies. The reason why these are two
obvious 'solutions' has to do with the fact that the association will charge
you personally for the use of equipment other than a slide projector or 0HP,
plus screen. The cost, for example, of renting a video playback unit, even
for five minutes, will not be less than $200. The Convention
hotel will not allow you to use your own audiovisual equipment on the
premises since they are 'union shops'―which have rules about who may and
who may not bring audiovisual equipment onto the premises. They make their
money by renting equipment to a captive audience This is, after all, private
property so you live by their rules when you're visiting their property.
2.
Slides: There are many software programs that
will produce professional-quality slides or transparencies―so along as the content that you
incorporate is equally of professional quality. If you only want to
prepare the text of the output and leave someone else to prepare the actual
slides, then you could have professional quality output produced for you in
the AV Lab on the third floor of the KSU library. But, for most of you the
PowerPoint or Publisher options work well. There is some cost
involved in having the library prepare the output ― but since you are
unlikely to be using more than 12 or so slides or transparencies then the
cost off about $2 per item is not prohibitive. You may need a lead time
of at least several weeks.
3. Both slides
and overhead transparencies have clear and separate advantages &
disadvantages. They are demonstrably professional in their appearance
and are good for large groups. Equally, both are relatively easy to create,
transport and update. Finally both slides and transparencies provide an
informal atmosphere which you can control and use to develop an interaction
with your group of conference participants. Transparencies are more easy to
reorganize during a presentation than are slides. Nonetheless, each of these
formats only show well in subdued lighting and do, to some extent, limit
interaction. The primary benefit of both slides and transparencies is to
serve as a road map for you as you prepare, as well as present, your work.
Beware of
Plagiarism: There should be a very real concern about using
information from the existing corpus of school psychology literature, or
displaying information developed by someone other than you. To knowingly
present another person's work as your own is unprofessional and could
be deemed plagiarism. More likely is the possibility of inadvertently
including someone else's work or failing to identify clearly that work
as having been generated by another. I suggest that every slide or
transparency be clearly marked to show the genesis of the ideas if those
ideas were developed from others' prior work. To do otherwise is to
leave yourself open to a claim that you are piggybacking, without
attribution, on the work of another. The print size on the attribution
lines does not have to be so great that it eats into the space you allot
yourself for the AV slide/transparency. For standard referencing of
print sources you should use any conventional systems, such as that of
APA. However, if you are using information sources from the World Wide
Web you have a different format to use. There is no well-established
common format for citing the Web. However no one will question you if
you include, on the attribution line, the full
http or
www address of the
URL, plus the date upon which you extracted information.
The rule of
thumb is that if the spirit of the work being displayed derives from
the work of another then, at the very least, you should include a
line which signals "derived from" or "adapted from...", etc.
If in
doubt, over-attribute.
A similar situations
relates to the attribution of others' ideas in the printed handout
―
which you should prepare for the conference participants. This handout,
which tradition tells us should be between seven and nine pages in
length, should include the full title of the presentation, your name,
e-mail and
affiliation (which should be your school district not KSU), and
the location of the presentation site. Your handout should not be
prepared in double space, but rather in single space with normal
margins. It should be printed on both sides. It is always better to have
a header which includes the title of the presentation plus your name on
every page. Prepare sufficient number of handouts for the anticipated
audience. For the KSU presentation you should anticipate 20 copies; for
the NASP presentation you should bring 50 copies, and a yellow pad to
take down the names of those who are in attendance but who do not get a
personal copy. [As to your requests for others'
presentation papers I suggest that you take a few dozen pre-printed
envelope address labels―it saves writing your address dozens of times!]
Remember:
If in doubt, over-attribute
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The Presentation Handout:
Quite naturally, the handout is a distillation of your presentation, as
well as an expansion of those points which you planfully do not intend to
elaborate upon during the presentation, but which you want to introduce as
'presumed knowledge.' In other words, the handout includes an overview of
your presentation, as well as information to which you wish to refer―but
which you will not spend time discussing even though you might reference it
as being included in the handout. The format of the handout does
not to need to be so formal as to follow APA guidelines for a research
paper. Its primary intention is to reflect on the content of your oral
presentation, plus offer some supplemental information. Typically it will
include text, tables, references which you have cited, and a bibliography of
several additional sources which may include sources from the WWW.
Some general Information about
the 'Intern on Campus' Presentations with specific reference to 'poster
sessions': Each intern will be allotted exactly 45 minutes for their
Integrating Experience "Intern on Campus" presentation (i.e., plus about 10
minutes combined for 'set-up' and 'tear-down'). This 45 minutes includes the
time, and so your eventual presentation should fit as
exactly as possible within a 45 minute time-slot.
Whether your NASP proposal
originally was for a poster or paper, and whether or not it is eventually
accepted, it's expected that your "on-campus" presentation will be a
'stand-up' oral presentation (i.e., a "Paper Presentation") of your proposal
topic. Nonetheless, you may still need to devise a poster for your
date-with-NASP, if that's the format you proposed. To help with this step
I've archived some hints-&-tips on creating a GREAT poster session. These
tips are accessed via others' sites on the WWW. If you complete the
following tour you'll get an instant education in creating and displaying an
exemplary poster session. The process I used was to search the Web with a
proprietary search-engine (e.g., www.google.com)
using appropriate terms (e.g., "poster session"). You should consider
doing the same since there are many more potential sites if you take some
additional time to conduct your own search. Some of the URL locations
you find are doubtless better than those I'm reviewing here...and, keep in
mind that some of these may not be working when you try to access them. It
seems many academics are 'working' on refinements to their WebPages during
the Summer months and these references are only the tip of all those
available. And, some may have been removed by the time you attempt access.
Poster Presentations:
(Please note:
Several of the pages that are referenced below have been placed on the www
by individual faculty teaching courses at a variety of universities.
WWW pages come and go. These page links all functioned in Summer
2005; however, as time passes they are likely to result in 'broken
links'). Once gone they're likely gone forever -- so catch 'them while
you can!)
Further resources on creating
effective scientific presentations can be found at a site created &
developed by Jeff Radel who teaches at the University Kansas Medical Center
in Occupational Therapy Education. This is a very fine example of a neat and
lively graphical display, in addition to holding VERY USEFUL information on
dissemination. This
site has a
high-quality tutorial on each of: 1. Developing an Effective Oral
Presentation; 2. Designing Effective Visual Aids for Presentations; &
3. Creating an Effective Poster Presentation.
Effective oral communication is
an important―but often overlooked and under-practiced skill in scientific &
academic endeavors. At this site you'll find a useful tutorial which has
been developed to serve as an introductory guide and general reference for
use when formulating any scientific talk. The principles could be applied
whenever you're faced with making a public presentation, whether it's at KSU
for the intern-on-campus day alone, at the NASP/OSPA conference
presentations, or any other inservice presentation you conduct in the
district. The topics in the tutorial cover....
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1.
Planning;
2. Preparation
3. Outlining
4. Important Elements |
5.
Practice
6. Presentation
7. The Moment of Truth
8. Handling questions |
The last source to which I'll
draw attention here is the revised "APA Crib sheet." This is a directory of
resources for writing in 'approved APA style.' It includes:
A Guide for Writing
Research Papers based on American Psychological Association (APA)
Documentation; APA Pub Manual FAQ [The APA's own set of answers to
Frequently Asked Questions]; APA Style Guide Prepared by Ron Corio; APA
style guide at the University of Southern Mississippi [Mostly covers
reference formats]; Bibliography styles handbook; Guide for Citing
Electronic Information; Guidelines for Writing in APA Style [by William U.
Borst, Troy State University--simulates an APA paper, lists many grammar
and punctuation and usage rules]; Lehigh University APA style guide
[Mostly covers reference formats]; Ohio State Writing Lab APA Style Guide;
Writing with Style [Complete guide from Mark Plonsky, University of
Wisconsin].
On-campus Presentation Evaluation:
Feedback is healthy and
success-enhancing. In an effort to be supportive through the provision of
collegial comments, following each on-campus presentation you'll be invited
to offer each presenter your thoughts on her further improvement of the
presentation. The taxonomy for these comments will be the subheadings below.
It may help you to reflect on your own presentation by considering each of
these elements, and consider how you can enhance your presentation...
-
Introduction to the Topic &
Self
-
Use of Visual and Other Aids
-
Degree to Which the
Presentation Met Her Declared Goals
-
Comments on the Content
Chosen to Illustrate the Selected Topic
-
Suggestions for Further
Improving the Presentation
-
Poise as a Presenter
-
Response to Questions
A few relevant more points, as
reminders:
q An
evaluation form will be circulated after each presentation session. The format for the paper evaluations is given
above. Look through these elements so that you understand the criteria to
be used.
q The
faculty in attendance at the on campus sessions will not act as
time-keepers, gophers or troubleshooters for equipment-related needs or in
other ways provide immediate support during each presentation
session. The goal is for the experience to be as ‘real’ as possible. Thus,
while you can be sure that an overhead will be delivered and that there’ll
be a screen in each room, it is your job (as it will be when you actually
present at NASP) to set up the room, equipment, handouts, and in all other ways
prepare yourself for the professional task.
q It’s
expected that you’ll have a handout to distribute. This ‘Integrating
Experience’ website has explicit details. Read them with care. The handout
you distribute should be the item you intend to distribute at NASP. That’s the only way that your attention can be drawn to changes that you
should consider for the NASP event. Check your spelling VERY carefully.
Bring 20 handouts for your audience.
q Tell
the audience what you plan. It’s
important for you to open with a description for your audience of the
journey on which you’re to take them (the 'Advance Organizer'). This is the time for you to delineate
what you’re planning to cover, and what you’re not going to address. This
also sets a roadmap for you and allows you to return to the session’s goal
if an audience member asks a question about a topic that you’ve already
determined that you’re not going to cover.
q Know how
you plan to handle questions. Will you accept them during the session?
Leave them to the end? Have a Q&A in the
mid-section? Unless you know in advance how you plan to handle questions
(which can feel like an interruption if you’ve some specific teaching-points
that you want to get across) then the clock will get away from you
―
guaranteed.
q Practice
your timing. Create a means for shortening or lengthening the presentation
―
based on the possibility that this might be needed. This might mean having
some overheads that you can ‘afford’ to drop without your presentation
suffering, or having a few extra examples on overhead that you can use to
stretch the content to fill the time.
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