Feeling nervous about presenting my research

I found myself feeling strangely nervous as I waited for my turn to present research I did for my Masters two years ago. I had been assigned a 15-minute slot to present at the Staffordshire University Winter Learning and Teaching Festival, and this was the first time I had presented my own research since my action research poster presentation back in 2015 as part of completing my PGCIE.
There was really no rational reason to be nervous, and it took me a little by surprise. I was confident about the content of my presentation, there was nothing controversial about it and it was only 15 minutes anyway.

Why then the nerves? Perhaps because it was out of comfort zone, just that little bit further removed from my standard context of delivering material to teaching staff on our programmes. My audience would be whoever decided to attend this festival of learning and teaching. This means most likely quite a few university staff members, and almost certainly people with more expertise than I have on research skills and probably my area of research too.

At least I had used my experience in the classroom to cut out as much unnecessary content as I could, included some audience interaction and tried to keep my slides light on text. At least it would look polished, I thought, and should be possible to finish within the time limit.

Fifteen minutes really is a tiny amount of time in which to introduce a research project that took one academic year to complete. I had made sure to only include findings relevant to the angle I chose to present. There was nothing more to do but wait for my turn and make the most of it.

How did I get chosen?

The call for presenters went out asking for contributions on topics including effective partnership practices as well as communities of practice, and I had done some research about how effective international partnership practices contributed to a community of practice in China, so I sent in my submission.

How did I get my dissertation into 15 minutes?

By being as ruthless as I could, cutting out most of the unnecessary details about the project and focusing only on the core message. If it wasn't needed for the project to make sense, it went. If it wasn't directly relevant to the angle I had chosen to present, it went.

Sections I included:

• Introduction
• Project and research questions
• Live word cloud
• Methodology and method
• Findings
• Conclusion
• Group discussion

Which parts was I most worried about?

The same ones I was most excited about really, which were the two opportunities for audience interaction: the live word cloud with the audience and the group discussion at the end. These two activities both posed the risk of taking up too much time, or the bigger risk that someone would contribute something that was outside my area of expertise and which I wouldn't know how to respond to. This last point is not worth worrying about, as there are plenty of generic responses to unwelcome contributions, but it was still in the back of my mind. Either way I chose to see my nerves as a good thing, as it was an indication that I was doing something outside my comfort zone, which is of course, as the cliché goes, where growth occurs.

How did it go?

There were some tech issues for the keynote speaker, but by the time the short presentations rolled around those appeared to have been fixed. The first short talk, the one before mine, started a little late but then ran for exactly 15 minutes, nice! I've been to quite a few conferences where the time limits were totallty not respected and not enforced and it made for a terrible audience experience (at least for me). I was very pleased to see that wasn't the case here, and in fact all three 15-minute presentations ran to time, mine included. Great to see.

As for my presentation, well I hit 15 minutes without the group discussion, so instead of doing that I asked the audience to think about the question instead of discussing it together and ended my presentation on time. Either way I was happy to have covered my content and my online live word cloud worked as intended. I did feel like I was rushing through my slides somewhat and I didn't feel as articulate as I normally am, but I feel it went well enough. The strangest thing was presenting into the darkness, as all I could see on my screen was my own PowerPoint on presenter mode (that I was sharing through Teams). I couldn't see myself, or any of the participants, or the teams chat, or even the time on my computer. This was not very comforting, but I ploughed on and finally noticed the timer in PowerPoint had almost hit 15 minutes when I reached my penultimate slide.

Conclusion

It was great to see all of the presenters sticking to their allotted time, and the other presentations offered interesting insights into other people's educational contexts. I think it would have been great day to attend in person if I was able to get over to the UK. As for my presentation, well I definitely over-researched and over-prepared my presentation. I see this as time well spent though, this should all come in useful when I attempt to use this same piece of research for a peer-reviewed journal article early next year. Overall, a great experience, would do again.