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pennswoods) wrote2014-05-16 09:16 pm
pennswoods) wrote2014-05-16 09:16 pm
Entry tags:
In Which I Sort of Won Something!
WE WON! WE ACTUALLY WON!
On Wednesday, our college hosted a Science Slam competition among its 5 departments. This meant that teams of 3 researchers from each department had 3 minutes each (9 minutes total) to present their research in an accessible yet interesting way to a crowd. I was tapped to be on the team for our department (Culture, Language and Media or Kultur-språk-medier in Swedish) for some reason - probably because I'll say 'yes' to anything. I had no idea what the heck I was doing, but we actually WON!
The three of us used powerpoint and had only met together for the first time Wednesday morning, but our coach had some experience in this and we used her comments and links to successful science slam videos on YouTube to tailor our talks and practice our timing. I made my talk as accessible as possible and threw out all the jargon. However, last minute person that I am, I only started writing my script on Saturday and did a little more on Sunday with the plan of sending a draft of it to the coach from London on Monday morning. But I decided not to and just corresponded with her to set up a time to meet to practice altogether.
This was a good thing as every time I went through and read and tried to memorize the script I pared it down further and further and further. Apparently, I am good at keeping things short.
I hadn't analyzed the data for the study yet, so I actually had to do a little data analysis to figure out what our results were? On Saturday, I read through some of the students' response papers(about 1/3 or them) to read what they had been aware of as they wrote and used this for notes. Tuesday, the day I returned from the US and London, I was up until 3am, alternately unpacking, prepping for class on Thursday and also putting together the 5 powerpoint slides I ended up using in my presentation.
The final slide was based on a wordle of all the stories students wrote. I had to copy and compile the stories in one file and then went through to replace almost all of the proper nouns. I'm not sure if that was the right choice, but with the names used in so many stories, they were the most frequently used words. Still, it made a pretty cool picture to illustrate the language of this project:
When we practiced on Wednesday for the first time at 10.30, I still didn't have it memorized, but got feedback and further refined one of my slides. I continued practicing until we met again around 4, but there were construction workers in my office and I felt really self-conscious trying to do this with them walking around.
We practiced once more before heading down to the room at 4.45. I was nervous the whole time (we were the 4th of the 5 groups), but as other groups ran over time or really hid behind a countertop, I started to feel more confident that we would do well. (Here are Tweets in Swedish documenting all the talks.)
When we went, we all used PowerPoint and we all were able to move around and look at and talk to the crowd. Each talk sort of built on the rest (using drama in education, covert literacy practices among children, using fanfiction to teach English).
The first line of my talk was "Do you want to go on an adventure". I knew it was going to be good when half the audience shouted back "Yeah". There were into it and laughed at parts and were nodding at parts and when I finished (in 2 minutes and 43 seconds) I got the loudest and longest applause (I attribute this to the photos of Martin Freeman as Bilbo that I used - he was my secret weapon). I did not have to consult my notes at all, and I didn't ramble or flub my words; even if I didn't use the exact words on my paper - I hit all the key points.
I thought the group after us, which was the natural sciences program, might end up winning because they were also good but also possibly more research-based and scientific. If you look at my slides, you can see that they are more illustrative and fun and not heavily research-based on style . But the judges clearly liked what we did and when we were having the celebratory dinner afterwards, they came out and announced us as winners (video in Swedish here).
When I got home, I spent the evening running around the house wearing my medal.
On Wednesday, our college hosted a Science Slam competition among its 5 departments. This meant that teams of 3 researchers from each department had 3 minutes each (9 minutes total) to present their research in an accessible yet interesting way to a crowd. I was tapped to be on the team for our department (Culture, Language and Media or Kultur-språk-medier in Swedish) for some reason - probably because I'll say 'yes' to anything. I had no idea what the heck I was doing, but we actually WON!
The three of us used powerpoint and had only met together for the first time Wednesday morning, but our coach had some experience in this and we used her comments and links to successful science slam videos on YouTube to tailor our talks and practice our timing. I made my talk as accessible as possible and threw out all the jargon. However, last minute person that I am, I only started writing my script on Saturday and did a little more on Sunday with the plan of sending a draft of it to the coach from London on Monday morning. But I decided not to and just corresponded with her to set up a time to meet to practice altogether.
This was a good thing as every time I went through and read and tried to memorize the script I pared it down further and further and further. Apparently, I am good at keeping things short.
I hadn't analyzed the data for the study yet, so I actually had to do a little data analysis to figure out what our results were? On Saturday, I read through some of the students' response papers(about 1/3 or them) to read what they had been aware of as they wrote and used this for notes. Tuesday, the day I returned from the US and London, I was up until 3am, alternately unpacking, prepping for class on Thursday and also putting together the 5 powerpoint slides I ended up using in my presentation.
The final slide was based on a wordle of all the stories students wrote. I had to copy and compile the stories in one file and then went through to replace almost all of the proper nouns. I'm not sure if that was the right choice, but with the names used in so many stories, they were the most frequently used words. Still, it made a pretty cool picture to illustrate the language of this project:
When we practiced on Wednesday for the first time at 10.30, I still didn't have it memorized, but got feedback and further refined one of my slides. I continued practicing until we met again around 4, but there were construction workers in my office and I felt really self-conscious trying to do this with them walking around.
We practiced once more before heading down to the room at 4.45. I was nervous the whole time (we were the 4th of the 5 groups), but as other groups ran over time or really hid behind a countertop, I started to feel more confident that we would do well. (Here are Tweets in Swedish documenting all the talks.)
When we went, we all used PowerPoint and we all were able to move around and look at and talk to the crowd. Each talk sort of built on the rest (using drama in education, covert literacy practices among children, using fanfiction to teach English).
The first line of my talk was "Do you want to go on an adventure". I knew it was going to be good when half the audience shouted back "Yeah". There were into it and laughed at parts and were nodding at parts and when I finished (in 2 minutes and 43 seconds) I got the loudest and longest applause (I attribute this to the photos of Martin Freeman as Bilbo that I used - he was my secret weapon). I did not have to consult my notes at all, and I didn't ramble or flub my words; even if I didn't use the exact words on my paper - I hit all the key points.
I thought the group after us, which was the natural sciences program, might end up winning because they were also good but also possibly more research-based and scientific. If you look at my slides, you can see that they are more illustrative and fun and not heavily research-based on style . But the judges clearly liked what we did and when we were having the celebratory dinner afterwards, they came out and announced us as winners (video in Swedish here).
When I got home, I spent the evening running around the house wearing my medal.