guest lecturer

Paul and I agreed to give the lecture for Wetland Ecology class yesterday. I figured it was good practice in public speaking, and I was curious how teaching at the college level would feel compared with middle and high school. We were using someone else's slides and only saw them the night before. We met with our professor the morning of so he could go over the take-aways, and then immediately went to another class, so there was no time to practice. If you're curious how I did and want to learn some basics about redox reactions, you're welcome to watch here. I only remembered that morning that our class was a distance learning class as well, and I would have a mic and would be taped. Aah!

I think both of us did a fairly good job. My classmates were kind and interacted by answering questions, volunteering to come to the front and explain things, and smiling back. The video doesn't capture their responses, so it's unclear what I'm laughing at. I laughed too much and said "um" too much, and I should have repeated audience questions for the taping. I also kept looking to my professor for confirmation, when I didn't need to. I've been to a number of seminars, symposiums, forums, etc already and have been impressed by the confidence exuded by professors when they give talks. Hopefully five years of these practice opportunities might shape me to be as confident.