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Context: I am teaching a course on plane geomtery at an mid-size state University in the USA for students who wish to be high school math teachers. They will have to make presentations once per week, and I want to provide them with a list of goals.

For example:

  • able to answer questions from the audience (within reason)
  • able to talk about the material rather than read from notes
  • able to connect this presentation to previous material
  • etc

Can anyone (recommend resources that) suggest what else I might ask for in a student presentation?

David Steinberg
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  • Be able to verbalize equations or theorems. Maybe less of an issue in geometry, but, finding the right language to discuss a formula as opposed to just mechanically reading through it is not easy and it will distinguish those who have thought about the topic from those who are just winging it. For a silly example, calling $ax^2+bx+c=0$ the quadratic equation as opposed to "the equation a times x quantity squared plus b times x plus c". Or, more generally, the process of creating good labels to refer to as to not waste inordinate amounts of time in discusssion. – James S. Cook Sep 16 '16 at 12:07

2 Answers2

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I have students present (in classes ranging from grades 7 to 12) and use the following rubric. It is not original, and googling various snippets suggests to me that it has been pieced together from several different sources. Perhaps modifying this could yield something useful (note, e.g., that I have the students present in groups — so if you are having them present individually, then some of the language will certainly need tweaking).

Google Drive Link to PDF of the file.

Image of main body:

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Benjamin Dickman
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Some skills I find valuable in real life:

  • Being able to continue the talk without slides, e.g. due to projector or laptop malfunction, etc.
  • Being able to stop the talk in the middle (e.g., having multiple possible stop-points). This is because our time might run out due to some non-related issues like a group of students behaving badly, the principal having an announcement, etc.
  • Being able to stop the talk late, that is, continue for some time after the designated mark. This might be due to things like "oh, we have covered this in physics class".
dtldarek
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