How Do You Grade a

Presentation Minus Content?

 By Emmett Dulaney
 07/13/11
To say that presentations are omnipresent in academia is an understatement of the
highest order. They are the standard for disseminating information to groups large
and small. It is the medium for educating, inspiring, and persuading, as well as
simply reporting and regurgitating.
It seems today as if college students can't open their mouths without an electronic
presentation. Gone are the nostalgic days of elementary school when students
assigned to talk about Abraham Lincoln dressed in period garb and pretended to be
the character. By the time they reach college, they can't imagine even discussing
Lincoln without a loaded clicker in their hand and PowerPoint, Keynote, or Prezi
appearing behind them so they can read off of it line by line.
Faced with presentation after presentation in dimmed classrooms, I have become
bothered by one set of circumstances: A student with great intentions spends an
exorbitant amount of time putting together a fantastic presentation but fails to
include all of the materials I believe should be there. Based solely on content, the
student receives a terrible grade and doesn't reap the reward for the hours spent
creating the presentation. But a fellow student who spends little time on the
presentation yet covers all the content I expect is rewarded with a high grade.
To address this situation and rectify a perceived wrong I have decided to use two
rubrics in the grading of presentations. The first rubric addresses the content only
and is specific to the assignment. The second rubric is only for the presentation
itself. How the message is presented is emphasized over the message in this rubric
because in every context the content changes.
Armed with the idea and no real plan of how it would look in implementation, I
turned to 12 fellow faculty members at my own and sister institutions. We decided
the "how" of the message should be divided into six dimensions with each
dimension evaluated on the following scale:
 1 = Needs work
 2 = Satisfactory
 3 = Commendable
 4 = Exceptional
The following rubric can be used for the presentation regardless of the technology
used:
Presentatio
n 4 3 2
Dimensions (Exceptional) (Commendable) (Satisfactory) 1 (Needs Work)
Aids were Aids were
relevant to the used but did
topic, not For the most not seem
merely used part, aids were relevant to the
as time filler. relevant to the topic.
Aids topic. Aids
enhanced the Aids enhanced appeared to
Effective Use speaker's the speaker's be used as
of Aids message. message. time filler. No use of aids.
Strong and
clear voice.
Spoke clearly
Audible from Mostly spoke but frequently
the back of the with a strong and needed to
room. clear voice, at speak up.
At times spoke faintly
Possessed a times needed to Slightly and was hard to
speak up.
lively pace monotone in understand.
and engaging Possessed a pace and
Hard for audience at
tone lively pace and tone. Needed
throughout engaging tone to be livelier. the back of the room
to hear.
presentation. for most of the Seemed
presentation. Overall was monotone
Spoke confident and
confidently Once or twice unsure of self in pace and tone.
when seemed unsure at various Needs to work on
presenting the of self when points of confidently presenting
Voice Quality material. presenting. presentations. the material.
Relatable Used the Used a few Could've Was out of touch with
language of words that were spoken their the audience, poorly
the audience out of touch with language connected with them.
and the audience but more and
Analogies and
connected still connected connected metaphor were out of
with them. with them. more with
place when
Used For the most audience. considering the
appropriate part, used Some
 appropriate analogies and
analogies and metaphors fell
metaphors. short.
analogies and Adapted the Could've done
audience.
metaphors. message to the a better job of
audience but adapting the Poorly adapted the
Adapted
message to needed some message to message to the
minor tweaks. the audience. audience.
the audience.
Although
presentation
followed an
outline and
Speaker jumped progression,
around a little the speaker
during jumped
presentation but around too
mostly followed much and
Presentation an obvious appeared
followed an outline and disorganized. Speaker did not seem
obvious progression. Speaker was to follow an outline
outline and with presentation.
Presentation pushing it on
progression. ended within the time limit. Presentation lasted
Presentation time limit. The speaker too long or was not
ended within long enough.
Once or twice, spent too
time limit. the speaker much time on Speaker did not seem
Speaker spent spent too much certain prepared. He or she
the right time or not aspects of spent too much time
amount of enough time on presentation on certain aspects of
time on each certain aspects and not presentation and not
aspect of the of the enough time enough time on
Flow presentation. presentation. on others. others.
Stage Wore Wore Could've Speaker's attire was
Presence appropriate appropriate attire picked not appropriate for the
attire for for presentation. something occasion/presentation.
presentation. Needs a little more Did not carry himself
appropriate to
Carried work on carrying or herself in a
himself or himself or herself wear for the confident and
presentation.
herself in a in a confident engaging manner with
confident and and engaging Needs to work
 on carrying
engaging himself or
manner with herself in a
the audience. manner with confident and
audience. engaging
Maintained
eye contact For the most manner with
the audience.
with the part, maintained
audience. eye contact with Needs to of the audience.

Speaker the audience. maintain more Did not maintain eye

eye contact contact with the
glanced Once or twice,
occasionally at speaker lost his with the audience.
audience.
notes rather or her place and Relied too much on
than reading it had to read from Needs to rely notes and read from
like a script. notes. less on notes. them like a script.
Could've done
Engaged the Tried to engage more to
audience and the audience andengage the
successfully elicit involvement audience and
elicited and was mostly elicit
involvement. successful. involvement.
Took minimal to no
Offered a Offered a Q&A Almost forgot action to engage the
Q&A time. time. to offer a Q&A audience. It was a
time. one-sided
AcknowledgedAcknowledged
and clearly all questions but Did not clearly conversation.
Audience answered all left one or two answer Did not offer a Q&A
Engagement questions. unanswered. questions. time.