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EP-23: Dr. Dawn DiPeri - Public Speaking for Instructional Designers

On today’s episode, we are talking all about public speaking. Public speaking is a skill you must practice as a instructional designer. Its not a common skill to hear about in our field, but the more I was growing in my career, the more and more I was talking in front of a crowd. If you think about it, public speaking is in other areas of our lives like interviews, teaching, giving a presentation on our courses, presenting at conferences. Simply put, I believe instructional designers will be doing more in public speaking for years to come. To help us unpack all of this, I needed to find a expert in the field and luckily, I’m friends with Dr. Dawn DiPeri. She’s a learning designer at Harvard University’s Graduate School of Education and the Owner of East End Advertising. Besides the fact that she’s a learning nerd like us, she even did her dissertation on communication skills for online learners.

What we talked about:

  • Getting started in public speaking

  • Overcoming the fear of public speaking

  • Applying this to the instructional design field

  • Avoiding common mistakes in public speaking

  • Preparing for speeches and presentations

  • Enrolling in an improv course

  • Creating your own style

  • Researching oral communication and best practices for online learners

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Transcript

Luke Hobson  00:03

Hey folks, and welcome on into another episode. I'm your host. My name is Dr. Luke Hobson. I'm an instructional designer at MIT. I'm also an online instructor, blogger podcaster. YouTuber, and the founder of instructional design Institute. My purpose is to help you make the online learning experience come alive for you and for your students. On today's episode, we are talking all about public speaking. Yes, I know the dreaded really scary topic. But I really want to talk to you about this today. Because public speaking is a skill you must practice as an instructional designer. It's not a common skill to hear about in our field. But the more of I have grown in my career, the more and more that I have been talking in front of a crowd, public speaking and other areas of our lives are also coming up. Even during these times. Think about interviews, teaching, giving presentations about courses, presenting at conferences and our online conferences. I mean, simply puts, I believe instructional designers will be doing more in public speaking for years to come. I'm sure other people are going to have podcasts, other people are going to be doing YouTube channels is just we need to have this skill we really do. So to help us unpack all of these things, I need to find an expert in public speaking. And luckily, I am friends with Dr. Donna Perry. She's a learning designer, a Harvard University's Graduate School of Education, and the owner of East End advertising. Besides the fact that she's a learning nerd like us, she even did her dissertation on communication skills for on line learners. So this one's gonna be awesome. We're gonna go all in the ins and outs of public speaking how it's going to help you out even how it can help out your students. This episode has everything. And just a heads up folks way at the end of the episode, my microphones switch to my laptop mic, no idea why but it was only like the last two seconds. So apologies for that one. But it does not take away from any of the awesomeness, which is this episode. So get ready, folks. Here's the one and only Dr. Donna Perry. Oh, hey, Don, welcome to the podcast.

 

02:23

Thank you for having me,

 

Luke Hobson  02:24

of course. And I am so excited. You're here because you are one of the only other people that I know of who also enjoys public speaking. So this one is going to be absolutely an awesome episode. Before we go any further for the folks at home. Can you just please introduce yourself? Tell us a little bit more about who you are your background and what it is that you do?

 

02:46

Sure. I am Dr. Donna Perry, and I'm a learning designer for Harvard Graduate School of Education. I work in the arid lab, and I'm responsible primarily for migrating their E for a curriculum online. I'm also a business owner and I own a company called East End advertising which is a graphic and instructional design firm and I've been in business since 2012. And lastly, I'm an online instructor. I'm currently working at AAU online, but I worked at a Suffolk County Community College Long Island University and St. Joseph's College hybrid face to face and online.

 

Luke Hobson  03:30

Okay, so I just heard is that you have a lot of free time, basically. I mean, I understand I can certainly relate with the amount of projects and other opportunities that I have. And I keep on for some reason saying yes to things and but at the same time, you know you love doing these things. So it's, I get it, I understand. So before we go any further into everything. I would love to hear a little bit more about you though, how did you first get into public speaking What was your first experience of all this?

 

04:01

I was interested in public speaking at a very young age. In fact, my very first job was as an actress and tour guide at the Salem Witch dungeon Museum in Salem mass. So if you've ever been there, I think that you had mentioned that you have to very interesting place. And my role is I was playing Mary Warren in the crucible and I had to stand in front of a very large group of tourists and scream at the top of my lungs how I saw a bird and go on and on about witches and then after I led them all down into the dungeon, which was in the lower level of the museum gave them some history and yeah, so that was my very first experience of public speaking and yeah, I did a few other things after with acting. But yeah, I always like to do public speaking.

 

Luke Hobson  04:58

Nobody is such a high Pressure job. And I can say that too, because I have been there. I'm not too far away from Salem, like we talked about before. And I've been there for a number of times. And for some of them, I have seen the presenters just do absolutely amazing. You know, it was so realistic, it was so creepy, it had all the elements that you would possibly think of. And then other times, unfortunately, I've seen one presentation where I think it was, it was a teenage kid. And I think it was like his first day. And he was so scared, terrified, he didn't know what he was doing. And I just felt so bad for him. Because we all knew in the audience that for the next two hours, this poor kid is this kind of fumble his way through. And he was so so nervous, in my hats off to you for knowing what you want to do at such a young age to be an actress and being in front of people. Because especially to such a young age, like that is not normal to want to do public speaking.

 

05:58

Yeah, no, not my normal to not be nervous, like, I've never really been afraid of public speaking. And that's not normal.

 

Luke Hobson  06:07

And I was just gonna, you know, I was just gonna ask you that have? Did you ever have a fear of public speaking? Or did that just never crossed your mind?

 

06:15

No, and never really crossed my mind. However, I've taught public speaking. So I definitely have empathy for those that have this fear. And I know that, you know, the literature supports that they have this fear, and there are strategies to overcome it. So I tried to teach that. Because I think I mean, one of my biggest tips that I tried to communicate is that it's not about everybody looking at you and and, and try to reflect outwards to your audience, and it's about adding value to your audience and interacting and engaging with them. And not to think about how silly you feel, or Look, I guess I didn't, I never really had that. self consciousness. I was always more concerned about who I was talking to the other person, or the other group of people.

 

Luke Hobson  07:08

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Did you take a public speaking course in high school or college?

 

07:13

Yeah, so I did take acting lessons, I took private lessons. And I was also involved in my high school plays. My first major in college was theater and Communications at the University of Miami before a transferred and switch to Visual Communications. So I took public speaking, I actually was trained by the same instructor who taught the rock facts. And I was in the class with somebody who became like, very high up in like, I guess, Budweiser, I remember, they're like it was this teacher was amazing, like, she does taught a lot of people. So I had public speaking classes, I had acting classes. And now I'm not taking any sorts of classes. But I get a lot of practice from teaching and presenting. And so for

 

Luke Hobson  08:00

sure, I had to take three public speaking courses for my degrees. And I still don't know how that's possible for my major in graphic design or for my masters in marketing. At the time, of course, I was like, I really don't want to take these courses. This is literally the last thing I want to do. And I didn't mind when I had to had to do a presentation or a project. But in this case, I had to make a speech every single week. So what was interesting about these courses was that and this goes back to your point about content and engaging with the audience is that there was always a different topic to talk about. So for one week, we were debating each other. And then the next week, we were asked to write a funny speech. And I'd never been asked to do that before, you know, it's not a normal thing we have to do, unless you're delivering a best man speech at a wedding. And you're trying to make everyone the audience laugh. But in this case, it was for my classmates on a random Tuesday, which was so different. And I never thought about public speaking like this before. Yeah, but

 

08:59

don't you feel like some of the best public speakers are comedians, when I did my dissertation, which I'll chat with you in a few minutes about that, but one of my participants was very, very, very good at public speaking. And he was a comedian also, so and that's the best type of way to practice. Like, if you can get people to laugh and like a stand up comedian, then you're probably a pretty good public speaker, because that is not easy.

 

Luke Hobson  09:27

No, not at all. It was really hard and I was so happy to to get a couple of chuckles and a little laughs here and there from college kids because it was extremely hard and something that I just never thought about doing before. On the flip side after that, though, I was just like, I could do pretty much any type of public speech. Now if I did this, I feel like I can do literally anything. And to your point about comedians though, because I'm sure at this point in time now in 2021, but in 2020, we all binge every single Netflix special that there is And for many of them, there are comedians and doing these stand up routines. And if you watch them and pay attention to them, what makes them such great entertainers, too, is that they don't stutter. They don't use pause words or fillers of the, you know, like things of that nature. They don't say any of those different types of things. And it's just remarkable to see what they can do.

 

10:21

Yeah. And they don't have any, like, self consciousness. So it's like, they don't care if they look foolish. I think that that's the most important thing to watch when you're looking at comedians.

 

Luke Hobson  10:32

Yeah, because it adds to it, it adds to the audience engagement, like you were saying, and it just makes everything you know, that much more, more incredible. And now, let's pivot away for a second, cuz I don't know how we get down this rabbit hole of comedians, let's pivot away from there. Let's talk more about our folks are learning nerds, the instructional designers, the learning experience designers, why do you feel it's important for them to have public speaking skills,

 

10:59

I think it's very relevant, whether or not you have your own freelance business, or you work for an organization, because you have to communicate your ideas. Number one, so you're either talking to your manager to communicate an idea with learning, you are maybe pitching to a client if you have a freelance business. And then oftentimes, maybe due to budgetary concerns, you might not have the budget to hire an actor to produce a video or a training video. So you may have to be that person, or you may not be able to hire a voiceover artists. So you may be that person. I know for my role, I've had to use my own voiceover work for when I'm recording different animations. I've also had to do like, training type of videos like here's our course, this is where you find XYZ, here's how you navigate it. Welcome to vo law like, so I feel like public speaking skills are helpful to the instructional designer for that reason, I think you use it on the job in many different ways.

 

Luke Hobson  12:04

So my favorite thing is, and I've also always felt the exact same way that you fell to. But my favorite thing about Elvis is that I didn't understand how important this skill was going to be, until my role started to morph, where my colleagues would say, Hey, you know, this course content better than anyone else? Can you go and talk to the professor about it, or whoever it was. And then that led to doing webinars and professors and being recorded and doing presentations for organizations and demos and such. And now, it's not a big deal. But back then I was like, wait, what you don't understand I'm, I'm in my own little bubble, sitting in this cubicle. I'm in this zone right here. And I don't need to step away from this, you know, let me just do my learning nerd stuff. But now with especially being in so many Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups, I'm noticing that more people are going through this transition, where the human skills, the communication element is becoming more and more important as the days go on.

 

13:04

Yeah, for sure, definitely.

 

Luke Hobson  13:07

And the best part about all of this, too, is that as I was noticing these things, I remember I posted it and one of the Facebook groups that were in, and I was just saying it to folks, how is this like, you know, I really think we need to look at public speaking a bit more and talk about this. And sure enough, one person commented on it. And he was like, I've been an instructional designer for 25 years, I've never once had to do public speaking before. And I'm like, and I'm blocking your

 

13:32

progress. Because like one thing that I've seen is that as you progress in your career and go kind of higher in the career ladder, the more interpersonal skills come into play, and the more presentations that you give, versus like sitting in front of your screen, and maybe just doing like tech stuff, or coding or whatever, like maybe when you first like get in in a job, maybe you're not doing as much public speaking, but eventually if you want to progress, I think that public speaking will help and speaking skills will set you apart and serve you well.

 

Luke Hobson  14:05

Yeah, and I absolutely agree with you. And if you're comfortable with being at that level, and that's all you want to do is what that gentleman locker term was, was trying to say to me in such a nice way, then even that's fine. You know, if you just want to be in that one position, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if you want to certainly advance in your career may even just stick about for interviews. Yeah, the amount of interviews and public speaking and how that goes into everything. Verse everything I've ever done for an interview has been me going up to a whiteboard or in front of a panel or a group discussion and talking about questions of working and handling with difficult sneeze How do I assess knowledge or like you know, whatever the question is going to be, it was always in a group setting a group atmosphere.

 

14:58

Yeah, totally. I want I used to teach at Long Island University and the new media department and I would have my students do a lot of different projects, including doing mock interviews. So like I would record them, and then they would watch it. And then they would be able to self assess. And we would do peer assessment. And it would be also my assessment. So that made such a big difference in their ability to interview and to improve their public speaking skills. So it's good that you brought it up, because everybody needs public speaking skills for interviewing.

 

Luke Hobson  15:34

Oh, yeah, it is really strange. It's really strange watching yourself to for the very first time, because you notice things you're like, wait a minute, I never done that before. I don't do that. And then I was like, No, that's actually what I do. So I think about when I would give a speech, and if I would sway left to right, or perhaps I would count on my fingers are a you know, I would do something along those lines. Those are things that I've never really thought about. But because of the video and such, that's what made me think about it. And this reminds me to I had one public speaking course. And a part of like, the final basically of everything is that we paired off students, and one person had to absolutely critique another speaker, and find a way to make them better. And she refused to accept like anything less like amazing critiquing. And I know that when, and of course, the folks at home can see me as I have to do this. But I know that when I am public speaking for a long period of time, I'll put more pressure on one leg compared to the other. So it looks like I'm slightly off balance. I'm just leaning to one way compared to another. And like they called me on that. So it was things like that nitty gritty of detail that try to make you a better speaker.

 

16:49

No, it's true. There's so many ways to improve and like you and I who have been doing this for so long, we even have so many things that we can improve. Like, I know this one person who has like a very, very, very detailed rubric on judging his students public speaking skills. So down to like eye contact and body language, just like you're describing like a whole nine yards, you're in the way that you pronounce your words inflection, tone, volume, I mean, there's so much into it. So there's always room for improvement.

 

Luke Hobson  17:26

I was even coached on how to prepare for criticism, I guess is like the best way of describing it is that for an example of this is that naturally, I'm a very short person, I'm a short dude. Because of that, and she's the same way she was a short person. And she would describe about how she would intentionally wear higher heels when she was giving a presentation, because she was trying to take away from the negative misconception that oh, this person is short, just like no, you're going to listen to me, for me. And for my content, I'm going to almost like take this insult away, you know, even though everything is talking about that is completely biased and unfair, and, you know, awful, and all those different things of that nature. But she was getting down to that level of really just how to prepare for a presentation in cases something like that ever came up?

 

18:19

Well, that's the beauty of podcasts. Right? You know, they're just focusing on your voice. But yeah, I believe it.

 

Luke Hobson  18:28

Yeah, it really made me start thinking about things differently. Before I was always thinking of like, Oh, you know, just go up there and wing it. You're gonna give it your best try. But then I started to think more about Mike my outfit, what color Am I going to wear is what I'm wearing appropriate for the events and things of that nature. So going from here, because you are an instructor and you have actually done entire dissertation on public speaking, which is mind boggling. And we're going to get into that in a little bit. What common mistakes Do you see when it comes to public speaking?

 

19:01

I guess one of the most not what I want to say popular, but one of the most common mistakes are those filler words. So doing um, like which we're all guilty of the tip I give her that which I also have to remember to apply is to pause and to breathe, and that there's no reason to rush through your answers. So same thing with an interview, you can take a moment to compose yourself, think about how you're going to answer the question and that will avoid some of those likes and arms because what you're doing is kind of searching for the next thing you're going to say but if you take a moment, take a breath. You'll know it'll come out a little bit more clearer without those words. The other thing that I think four mistakes that people do is again, focusing on themselves and not on the audience. Feeling self conscious not being What's the word not being confident in their body language? So I'm really big fan of Amy Cuddy and her power posing and the psychology of like the nonverbals. Because a lot of people, they come in their clothes, shoulders, they're talking down, they are not like, projecting their voice. And that's all like confidence. And again, I think that has to do with just the focus on Do I look okay, do I sound okay, what are they thinking of me and trying to give that advice of Don't think about yourself at all, think about what's happening with your audience, you know, you want to be self aware to change some of your mannerisms, like we spoke about, but not so much that it affects your confidence.

 

Luke Hobson  20:41

Hmm. I love that all those things certainly hit home with me as I've experienced them before. I've seen them and my thing, but I always I don't know how to describe it. But my thing that I always have seen with folks where I'm like, why, why are you doing this is that they don't have the passion in their voice when they're presenting.

 

21:01

Yeah,

 

Luke Hobson  21:01

I give you are in front of an audience. You're talking about something then please care. Like, I don't know what's happened. I can't get inside your head. I can't figure it out. Because all I'm trying to figure out is like, why does this person not care? Like its

 

21:15

own? Right? Yes.

 

Luke Hobson  21:16

So as you were saying, it's looking down, and perhaps it is nervous, which I know I get. But if you are in front of a bunch of people, it's your moment, you know, the spotlights on you like we're listening. So whatever you have to say like now is the right time to talk about it. And instead, you don't want to be known as the guy who says I'm 37 billion times.

 

21:38

It doesn't their inflection or or like put in the emotion. I feel like both of us when we're listening to each other speak, I feel like we're just very passionate work in our career. And I think that comes out when we're speaking. But some people they maybe they're passionate, but it doesn't come out in the way that they're speaking it just sounds like ben stein, like just all like the same monotone.

 

Luke Hobson  22:03

It's true as the number one comments that I've received about the podcast is whenever someone is a new listener, they're like, you're really passionate. Because I care. Yeah. So I get it, I get it. So I'm curious for you and your personal style, how do you specifically prepare for speeches,

 

22:26

the best way to prepare is to know your audience. So again, with that, like tip are thinking about, like, who you're talking to. So today, the way I prepared was really kind of think with my instructional design hat, like, I know that your listeners, our instructional designers, or educators. So I want to make sure that things that I'm saying is extremely relevant to them. They don't have a lot of time to listen to podcasts, I want to make sure that I have takeaways that are something that they can just apply right away. So knowing your audience is one thing I'm getting some rest is something I've been working on the day before a presentation. It's not always easy. But I tried to do that. And what else sometimes a little bit of improv learning improv. I've taken improv classes before, but it's so helpful because you never know what's going to happen in a presentation. And things don't always go as planned. So Oh, this has to do with improv. But a really good tip. Since we work in technology and instructional design, anytime we have to give a presentation, say to a group of administrators and higher ed or maybe an organization, we're pitching something, always have a backup plan for attack. So if you're delivering a PowerPoint presentation, and something's wrong with the file, maybe you also have it on Google Slides. If you have it in the cloud, maybe you also have it on a USB drive, if you so always thinking like if something goes wrong, what's my backup plan? And I think that that is always come in handy for me, because there's always been times that there's been trouble.

 

Luke Hobson  24:01

Always, always always, I had a presentation the other day. And we for whatever reason, could not get Google Slides to fall underneath my ownership. I guess it just wouldn't work. Like we're on zoom. So I'm trying to use my slides would not work. They made me the host. They made a basically like the king of zoom. And I can have access to literally everything and nothing works. Oh to do folks, like I know I have I have an hour to talk to this class. And literally nothing is working. And the only way for us to make it work. Hey, we got through it. But the only way for us to make it work is that I had to send the professor and give them access to my Google Drive. So that I gave him access to my slides. And then I just told him next I'll give my little my whole spiel on personalized

 

24:52

said next to the word on the spot, right. I mean that that's such a skill for ID How we could be your own podcast episode of like, like on the spot tech troubleshooting.

 

Luke Hobson  25:06

Oh my gosh, seriously, I wish I had done something any of the things you just said, I wish that I had followed through with that, or else I wouldn't have been in that crazy and super fun situation. So you talked a little bit about changing your approach and style when it comes to the audience and trying to gauge engagement and things of that nature. And I'm just going to assume it does your style change too, depending upon, like what you're preparing for, for instance, preparing for an interview versus delivering a presentation on a course or something like that?

 

25:39

Yeah, I think that the the preparation can be slightly different. I mean, when I've taught public speaking, and as you mentioned, in your experience with taking public speaking classes, we're always able to practice with a variety of types of speeches. So whether like a persuasive speech, that an example of me doing that, and my job is when I'm trying to pitch to a new client, and I'm trying to secure work. So ahead of time, what I'll do is I'll study the client really well, I'll try to kind of do like a little mini needs assessment, like where where are the areas that I think they need improvement? How does my organization fulfill those, you know, give like examples of what we've done in the past that is similar. So kind of applying, you know, the rules of persuasion in like a sales pitch. So that's a very different type of presentation to prepare for compared to maybe a type of presentation that you may give as an educator, you know, just doing some kind of lecture or discussion or where maybe you're just asking a lot of questions and engaging the audience. So yeah, I think that it depends on the type.

 

Luke Hobson  26:52

Okay, and I need to ask about this, too. I didn't want to just gloss over it. But you mentioned one term that I was kind of curious to hear if you were going to say and you did mention it, which was improv, every single person I know of who is involved in public speaking says to take an improv course, what is it about improv, people are so nuts about,

 

27:13

it's so fun. Number one, it's a great way to learn and learn fast. I have seen some professors use improv in their online teaching. So I would love to incorporate that type of strategy in my own classes, because you just learned so quickly. So basically, I think one of the greatest things about improv is like, you don't know what is going to happen. So if you're one of those uptight type people that has to like plan everything, which generally that's kind of the way I am, I'm like, very like perfectionist and have to plan like, I hyper schedule everything in my calendar and like, this is what I'm doing. And then I'm doing this and then I'm doing this, and then this is going to happen, like that's my life. But I also know that things can go awry. And you have to be able to, you know, change paths or change focus on a drop of a dime. So, improv teaches you that, you know, like the different scenarios that happened in an improv class, they help you to solve problems, to compose yourself to think of solutions quickly. So all of that stuff is so relevant for an instructional designer, right?

 

Luke Hobson  28:26

Oh, yeah, absolutely. And as soon as you said, I wrote that down, because everyone I know, says, The take improv, and I've said it on the improv course before, and it was mind blowing, I was trying to think about what they were going to say or do and it was just something else, to have a constant curveballs thrown at them. And then they immediately reacted to everything. And I was trying to, like think one step ahead to see if I could actually do it. And of course, I couldn't, just so much talent inside of that room.

 

28:54

And it's great for team building, too, because you have to be able to react to the person that you're interacting with and like be able to read them their body language, their eye contact, and just it's like a synergy thing. I don't know like you can't let them down. You have to like keep going. You can't like bring a character. So it's it's a good skill team building exercise also,

 

Luke Hobson  29:17

is there one skill in particular and skill, I should say is one activity or exercise in particular, but in an improv class, it like is like the most effective if you will, like the whole way, like don't drop the ball, don't do the, there's something like that. And I

 

29:32

from my head right now, but if I do, I will send you some notes for your, for your podcast.

 

Luke Hobson  29:40

I find it so fascinating that whenever somebody is talking about how to get better at public speaking, improv, always finds its way in there. So that's on the list of things I need to look into and eventually do whenever I somehow get more free time to do stuff. But anyway, let's talk now. About your Dissertation Tell us more all about it since it actually was about online students and oral communication skills. Yeah, my

 

30:07

dissertation was on exploring how can you curriculum can strengthen the oral communication skills of undergraduate online students. And when I first started my doctorate, I was teaching presentation essentials online, which is basically public speaking and presentation skills. And what I found is that in all of my experience of teaching any class online, most of the students were only communicating in written form, they were very rarely talking. So if we had some kind of a live chat or forum, they often wouldn't put on their camera, or they wouldn't put it on their microphone. If I asked a question, it would like be like dead silence, it was not always easy to get people to interact and to speak. And then the way that the courses were designed, which I didn't always have a say in the way that the shell was created, or the way the assignments were made. They were like, primarily, like, discussion board format, essays, and I'm like, How am I supposed to teach public speaking, when they're just like doing discussion boards and say, and then they have this Suman IV assignment at the end of this big public speech? And they were nervous as hell like, which, of course, because they didn't practice it, there's like, how can you put all of that expectation on them at the end? So I just wanted to know, like, what were other instructors doing in the online space for improving oral communication? And like, did they have a say, because I was an educator, and like, I didn't have instructional design role at this particular institution I was teaching at. So I felt constrained within the system, like I couldn't do certain things, you know, so it was kind of curious, like, how other colleges came about this? Did instructors have academic freedom to change it? And if they did, what kinds of tools and technologies that they use to get their students to participate more? What kinds of assignments that they have? How did they assess oral communication and so forth? So yeah, it was it was interesting, it can't be, you know, a lot of people complain that their dissertation topic, their board of like, halfway through, I was so super excited, like, the whole time, I just never got bored of the topic,

 

Luke Hobson  32:26

you basically just described all my undergrad, by the way, that was seven weeks of work with the eighth week being the final presentation, then everyone would go up there, and they would be kind of nervous looking at the ground only reading to their PowerPoint slides. So that is absolutely amazing. What were the findings of your study?

 

32:47

It was really interesting. So we, I explored the participants what what they did. So they use different types of tools and technology like they did flipgrid, where they got students, instead of just, you know, writing out their responses, they were recording videos in the discussion board. So that was one way to practice. Like I said, one of my participants had a very, very detailed rubric. He did things like model the behavior in class, he had his own, like Ted Talks and stuff, so he would show them that. So that was a way to help improve it. They did several speeches in the class versus just one. Also just, you know, different. I learned quite a bit about, you know, learning theory, you know, from the online pedagogy, and also just very specific tech tools and techniques from that dissertation. So it's really interesting findings.

 

Luke Hobson  33:46

So clearly, you're very passionate about. And I know that one of the biggest hurdles is that if you're so passionate about a topic, we're obviously supposed to be neutral to everything. So as you're going about and observing everything and seeing what's working, what's not, how did you remain on the fence and not just like, jump in there, like, want to, like, you know, talk more with the students are encouraged something or find out more about things? How would you remain neutral with your writing?

 

34:12

Yeah, it was hard to like keep your bias out of it. That's one of the things I think we all struggle with when we're writing our dissertation, right? I mean, we always have like inherent bias. But I was more interested, I guess, in just learning from what was working from other students from other instructors, versus like my own opinion on what should be done. So I guess when I looked at it that way, it was more of like, I think that people need to know what they can do to improve it versus, you know, me saying there's a problem or something. Yes,

 

Luke Hobson  34:47

yes. No, that makes,

 

34:49

for example, like when I did the literature review, I like uncovered and everybody kind of knows this, but it's been in the literature multiple times in multiple places that employ One of the top skills that they're looking for is oral communication skills, yet colleges are producing graduates that do not have that skill. And this is shown again and again and again. So like, that was another reason why I had this passion because I'm like, there's a disconnect. So what could I do from like, an administrator point of view or an instructional design point of view to let people know that like this online education needs to be modified or changed to, to fix that major problem.

 

Luke Hobson  35:34

And we're still nowhere close to ever solving that. Your your, your literature, and your passion is definitely one step in the right direction, all of us, but it is astounding about how that is so true. Like, I can't imagine how long your literature review must have been of seeing the exact same common themes over and over and over again, of students not being ready to go out into the real world. And employers are always saying like, but I need these skills. And academics are like, Yeah, but I need to teach them these skills. And then there's that common ground area where like, what's going on? Why are we meeting in the middle here and trying to make it work? So

 

36:11

yeah, yeah,

 

Luke Hobson  36:12

we use still, that's our, that's a project that we will continue to try to solve as we keep on doing our thing. So let's end it on this and everything we just talked about, from your research, from best practices from everything that you have done, and have become an expert in public speaking, if you were to give advice to instructional designers about how to overcome their fears, how to even just start getting better at public speaking, what's the first thing they should do? What What should they actually follow?

 

36:44

I would say just practicing, you know, whether or not you can make your own videos, even if they're just for yourself, like practice doing tutorials for other people, maybe even family members, like, I'm sure everybody can think of someone who's not very tech savvy, right? Like we all probably have, like parents or grandparents or whatever, right? So maybe we could like do a recording of us like speaking and showing how to do something simple things like that volunteering in your organization to do voiceovers volunteering to do like panels or discussions or presentations, you can be on advisory boards, like I just recently did a virtual career day for some foreign school districts. So that was some public speaking opportunity. So there's lots of places out there that could use you as a speaker. So you know, just volunteering and getting involved in your work as well. And then watching and listening people to people who will do it? Well, I think it's helpful to watching quiet acts talks, or TED Talks is a really great start.

 

Luke Hobson  37:50

I was just gonna say I'm so glad you said that too. Because that was actually the final thing I was gonna I know I already said final thing, but I like I talked about, but I was gonna say about for having a role model to actually think about like, that helped me so much. I couldn't figure out my style of how I was going to present to the public what I wanted to do, because I noticed that as I continue to see, other people go and speak causes like, like, what's my voice? Where's my passion? Where's my style of that? And Funny enough, that actually came from reflecting back to my dad was a preacher. And I remembered him preaching and going up there. And the first thing that I started to notice as I was obviously, I'm sitting there, like, you know, my younger kingdom is watching and preach. But what I was noticing is that usually in church, you have a fair amount of people who kind of just like they're nodding off, they're kind of paying attention, you know, but when he was speaking, everyone was looking at it. Like, no one was bored. No one was kind of just like, get me out of here to Sunday, I need to go do a thing. Like he, they were just locked and loaded on him. And I was like, wow, he's probably really good at this. And maybe I should, you know, copy him. And luckily, we literally look and sound exactly the same. So when I start speaking, I think about him all the time. Right, tuned into my dad from years ago, and I'm like, Ah, there we go. That's Yeah, that's the style. So do you have a role model or someone else that you replicate with that?

 

39:17

No, I wouldn't say it's some anybody in specific or in particular, but it's more of like a compiled nation of several people. So you know, professors. Of course, people like the greats like JFK, Martin Luther King, I really love people who have a lot of passion and charisma on stage, and, you know, have the credit credibility. Amy Cuddy, Simon Sinek, there's so many lists Seth Godin, my my boss at Harvard, Terry Givens I could go on and on. I think it's a compiler ation, you pick up a little bit from everybody and you learn as you go, you kind of find your own just like your own brand. You find your own voice, and you Your own way of doing things but you learn from others.

 

Luke Hobson  40:03

I love it. That's a wonderful note. Let's end on that, Don, where can people go to learn more about you, your work and everything else?

 

40:11

Sure, you can find me on East End advertising calm, which is my graphic design instructional design firm. And if you're interested, if you click on Instructional Design tab, and sign up there, you'll be let in on the updates of when we're producing our graphic design courses for the instructional designer. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. And yeah, those are pretty much the two places on always that

 

Luke Hobson  40:39

so wonderful. Well, I'll include the links anyway, do people will find you, I guarantee. Thank you once again, for coming on the show. This was awesome. So glad to have you on here.

 

40:49

Thank you. Well, I

 

Luke Hobson  40:50

told you, that was gonna be a fun one. And it was thank you again, Dawn for coming on the show and sharing your words of wisdom, you can connect with Don by checking out her links in the show notes, you can once again find all my information over at Dr. Luke hobson.com. This includes the blog, podcast, YouTube channel, and instructional design Institute. If you're on Facebook, come hang out with us a whole bunch of our learning nerds. Over in our group, we're once again link is down below in the show notes. But you could also go into your phone or your browser and just type in instructional design, Institute community and Facebook. And that is going to pop right up. So folks get ready for more public speaking content. By the way, I love this topic, as you can probably guess. So there's gonna be more I promise you, I'm going to talk more about public speaking. And of course, I would love to help you out when it comes to public speaking because for many people, this is a terrifying experience and they do not want to do this. So if I can share with you anyway, of how I have found enjoyment in this process, I am definitely going to make more content to help us out. So give this show a five star rating wherever you are listening to podcast, it doesn't matter where Apple, Spotify, Stitcher or some other ones I don't even know about at this point in time. All of your ratings and reviews really help out this show grow. And once again, I really appreciate it. But hey, folks, that's all I have for you stay nerdy out there, and I'll talk to you next time.

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