From Robotic Academic Lectures to Lectures that Light Students Up- a Case Study from Dr. Breanna Boppre
I’ve always been inspired by visual creativity and art. Yet, my path in college took me another direction. After having family members incarcerated throughout my childhood and young adulthood, I wanted to pursue higher ed to challenge approaches within the U.S. carceral system. To accomplish that goal, my artistic side was placed on the back burner for applied research and policy evaluation instead.
As I progressed through my BA, MS, and PhD, I found myself coming back to that desire for visual design.
I often felt stifled by the robotic, text-heavy, and bland presentation-styles in academia.
Before BOSS
Using SmartArt before BOSS
As a graduate student, I enjoyed creating research posters. Finally, I was able to use visuals and display my work in a creative format.
Nonetheless, my research presentation slides still modeled what I had seen during academic conferences: walls of text, data dumps, and tacky PowerPoint templates.
How I used to present qualitative data (quotes) - BEFORE BOSS
After I joined Twitter, I soon came across Dr. Echo Rivera and Creative Research Communications. I took her free training and was instantly intrigued. This is what my own presentations and many other academics’ were lacking: effective and engaging visually appealing methods grounded in scientific research.
Thanks to support from my former department (School of Criminal Justice at Wichita State), I then went on to take Blast Off to Stellar Slides! (BOSS).
My presentation style was elevated.
Through Echo’s training, I became mindful of storyboarding and cognitive load. I use visuals to supplement what I talk about instead of text heavy slides.
Echo’s training has transformed my scholarship in various ways.
First, BOSS has greatly improved my pedagogy.
The slide design in BOSS aligns with recent advances in the science of teaching and learning. For example, Eng (2017), Costa (2020), and Pacansky-Brock (2017) recommend moving beyond the “sage on the stage” format with traditional lecture and moving towards providing students more humanized interactive and engaging spaces for learning.
I have noticed first-hand that students pay more attention to my updated slides. Their reactions to the visuals in my slides light up and help them connect with the material rather than getting lost in reading the text.
With guided notes (Clevenger & Navarro, 2018), similar to the handouts described by Echo, they are better able to pay attention and fill in the blanks rather than taking detailed notes.
Creating engaging and helpful visuals using the lessons in BOSS
Also, The “present from your desk” mini course in BOSS has helped me connect with students over Zoom by focusing on interactive discussions or activities rather than lecture, which I save for asynchronous videos.
Second, the presentation trainings have improved my public scholarship.
The way I now present my research is much more effective and accessible to display dense and complex quantitative and qualitative data.
Over the past year, I’ve given several campus talks and a job talk. Audience members approached me afterward commenting that the talks were the best they have ever seen. In the era of Zoom, it is extremely easy to “check out” and disengage.
I myself will check my email or other tasks during a boring webinar (guilty!). However, multiple audience members stated to me that the hour in which I presented flew by because they were more engaged.
“…multiple [webinar] audience members stated to me that the hour in which I presented flew by because they were more engaged.”
After BOSS
Finally, and what I consider most importantly, the BOSS trainings have improved my confidence in presenting.
As a graduate student especially, I was terrified to present in front of large audiences. I pushed myself to practice, but still did not enjoy it.
Now thanks to BOSS, I look forward to creating my presentations; it is actually fun now!
This presentation style has allowed my inner graphic designer to partner with the researcher and teacher in me.
How I present qualitative data (quotes) now - AFTER BOSS
The myths related to academic presenting remain strong in my field (e.g., one slide per minute, less slides are better). However, this certainly isn’t the first time I’ve taken on creative risks to advance my scholarship.
I incorporate creative assignments and activities into my teaching as well, such as infographics, social media campaigns, liquid syllabi, and service-learning (for examples, see Boppre, forthcoming, 2020a, 2020b).
“Now thanks to BOSS, I look forward to creating my presentations; it is actually fun now!”
Ultimately, I’ve seen the benefits of BOSS firsthand and I am firm in my commitment to effective presenting as it is grounded in research on cognition and learning.
Learning new approaches can be tough! The majority of us academics are already overburdened with course prep, service, and research.
Also, our field doesn’t necessarily reward or incentivize us to spend time developing our presentation style. We often do not receive formal training on presenting and not all departments are able to fund professional development opportunities for faculty and students.
Yet, isn’t a major point of our scholarship to reach the public?
If we academics want to connect with the public and impact practice in the field, we mustn’t neglect how we communicate our scholarship with them.
BOSS in particular was a large time commitment. However, due to the asynchronous format, I was able to complete the training at my own pace.
I also enjoyed opportunities for hands-on activities to follow along with Echo (e.g., creating the PowerPoint master slides workshop). For me, the trainings were well worth my time and funding support from my department. I would encourage more institutions to support students and faculty in pursuing Echo’s trainings.
Her free training is an excellent and free start! While creating presentations can be time-consuming (for an hour-long talk, it may take me 4-6 hours to prep), I’ve found that Echo’s methods help to streamline the process by saving images and master slides to reuse in the future. I often reuse or rework presentations to save me time in the future.
Echo’s trainings were honestly life changing for me.
I am now able to prioritize graphic design and art into my presentations to connect and communicate with others. I’ve found this shift in my scholarship has made my work much more rewarding and fulfilling.
I still challenge carceral approaches, but I do it more effectively through visually engaging and creative methods.
Dr. Breanna Boppre’s Bio
Dr. Breanna Boppre is an incoming Assistant Professor to Sam Houston State University in the Department of Victim Studies. From 2018-2021, she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Wichita State University. Her research focuses on how the U.S. carceral system impacts individuals, families, and communities.
To find out more about Dr. Boppre and her work, visit her website.
References
Boppre, B. (forthcoming). Using Experiential Learning to Humanize Course Content and Connect with Students. In J. Neuhaus (Ed.), Picture a Professor: Intersectional Teaching Strategies for Interrupting Bias about Faculty and Increasing Student Learning. West Virginia University Press.
Boppre, B. (2020a). “Teaching Note: Creating an Interactive and Engaging Syllabus: The Liquid Syllabus Format.” In C. Scott-Hayward (Ed.), Division on Corrections and Sentencing Spring Newsletter (p. 6-7).
Boppre, B. (2020b). “Teaching Note: Infographics as Alternatives to Traditional Research Assignments.” In C. Scott-Hayward (Ed.), Division on Corrections and Sentencing Spring Newsletter (p. 10-11).
Clevenger, S., & Navarro, J. N., (2018). Teaching criminological theory. Cognella.
Costa, K. (2020). 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos: A Guide for Online Teachers and Flipped Classes. Sterling, VA: Stylus Publishing.
Eng, N. (2017). Teaching college: The ultimate guide to lecturing, presenting, and engaging students.
Pacansky-Brock, M. (2017). Best practices for teaching with emerging technologies. New York: Routledge.
