Giving Presentation Feedback

by Melissa Dion

The value of providing feedback to students on oral presentations cannot be understated.  Written and Oral Communications are a foundation skill for all University of Phoenix Students, and in the College of Humanities, oral communication is a skill that can be improved on in each and every course.    At the Phoenix campus, strong focused is placed on providing substantive feedback on all areas of student work, including oral presentations.

Faculty may not realize the opportunity that is present each and every time a student or learning team presents in class to offer critiques as well as positive comments on the presentation.    When a team or student has completed a presentation, in addition to completing a rubric for the presentation, the faculty member should offer immediate feedback while the student(s) are still in the front of the classroom.  Positive comments on the good skills the students should continue to utilize, as well as pointing out areas for improvement will be most clearly understood and applied when the feedback follows immediately after the presentation.  Fellow classmates can be a tremendous help in offering feedback as well, and it helps those classmates to be aware of the skills they may need to improve on in their own presentations as well. 

In the online environment, presentations still play a significant role in the students’ learning experience.  While the same oral feedback cannot be given, requiring students and teams to complete detailed speaker’s notes in a PowerPoint presentation and providing solid feedback on how the presentation is put together can still be very helpful to students.  Many students will take both online and ground courses during their educational journey at UOPX, so feedback on PowerPoint presentations in the online environment is highly important as well.

When students graduate, oral communications is just one of the skills that students should be strong in demonstrating.  However, public speaking is not a skill that is mastered in one five week class.  As with many other skills students graduate with, improving in this area requires working on the skill as frequently as possible.  The role of all faculty, not just those teaching in the area of Communications, is critical to ensuring students improve as much as possible in the area of public speaking or oral communications while they are attending the University of Phoenix.