Increased ability to give a (good) presentation (enhanced presentation skills).

‘Creativity involves breaking out of established patterns in order to look at things in a different way’.
Edward de Bono



The presentation skills training program focuses on creative ways of presenting information. In general, students in their final year of undergraduate education have used PowerPoint on numerous occasions for various courses. The training in this skills course focuses on different communication techniques:

Pecha Kucha,: a timed presentation using pictures. Learning objective : pictures are a strong medium and students learn to time their presentation and respect deadline of 20 seconds per slide. Requires good preparation.

Elevator Speech : three minutes to draw someone’s attention to an issue aiming at establishing a future appointment to tell them more. More importantly THEY want to know more. Learning objective : structuring the elevator speech with a view to eliminating what is irrelevant and concentrating on what is relevant.

TED talk : combines story-telling, the use of catchphrases, metaphors, analogies, maintaining the audience’s interest so that the audience is inspired. Learning objective : the power of words and presence on stage.

The theme is linked to Maastricht University: sustainable development, education, students’ associations, going greener etc. Students in the past two skills training have demonstrated creativity in their presentations and by ‘breaking out of established patterns’ have experienced the freedom of thinking out of the box.

PowerPoint is a support but how you convey your information is of paramount importance.

Reading booklet, provided on Canvas .

No specific knowledge required.
An advanced level of English