From common to convincing (A BOSS case study)
I am an Affiliate Faculty member at the University of Minnesota and I am a K-12 music teacher (middle school band, to be exact). I give 1-2 presentations a year but I ended up enrolling in BOSS because I teach a graduate level lecture course and was ready to take it to the next level.
I came across Echo Rivera from a post on another blog called The Professor is In. I was intrigued with what she had to say, so I hopped over to her site and checked out her free materials. I had an upcoming presentation about a topic in my field that I was really excited about and I wanted it to be convincing and effective. I signed up for one of Echo’s free webinars on slide design to prepare for the presentation.
The day of the presentation came and I was ready! I was nervous, but ready. A few people started to arrive for the session, and then more and more people arrived. They kept filing into the room until it was standing room only! Apparently other music teachers were interested in this topic, too. I started my presentation; people were captivated with the content and with my slides. For the rest of the conference, I had complete strangers stopping me in the exhibit hall to tell me they loved my presentation! I knew, deep down, that my slides had something to do with such an enthusiastic response. I emailed Echo to thank her and she immediately replied back and encouraged me to enroll for BOSS.
I was hesitant at first because I don’t spend all of my professional time giving presentations, but after scouring all of Echo’s free resources, I decided to take the leap and I’m so glad I did! By taking the course, I realized I already was doing some things pretty well while also recognizing the areas where I could improve. Going into BOSS, I was worried that maybe I wouldn’t know how to do something “techy” – like when my 7-year-old shows me how to do something on my iPad that I had no idea was a thing. This was definitely not the case with BOSS. Echo has so many bonus technical how-to videos that made things very easy to learn, practice, and implement.
After taking BOSS, I make slides easier and faster. Now, it’s so easy to find effective visuals. It’s easy to create a storyline of slides that flow together to make content easier for students and audiences to follow. Nobody once asked me this semester: “Are these slides going to be online?” Whenever I have a student ask me that question in the past it was because they were saying “I don’t really care what you are saying right now, I’ll look at it later” or “I’m confused about what you are saying right now, I’ll deal with it later.” Echo teaches about creating effective handouts that I was able to make for my graduate level course. It made me feel better about my teaching overall.
Finally, I really love being part of the BOSS community. Online calls were fantastic and the community cheers each other on in the private forum. Even though I’m not a full-time academic, I still felt welcome. Good slide design is applicable to all levels of education!
