Lesson 11 – Presentation Preparation and Grit (Angela Duckworth)

Presentation Preparation
You continued to work on your presentation and to get feedback from your classmate. 

We also learned how to add video to Google Slides.


Grit (Angela Duckworth TED Talk)
Angela Duckworth is a psychologist who has researched why people succeed or fail at their goals. She has come up with the term grit to describe passion and perseverance for long-term goals.

I shared this talk and shared with you her own description about how much practice she needed to give her talk in flow. 

You can watch the video again and read the part of her book where she talks about how practice helped her give this talk well.

I want you to practice well, so we will have our presentations next week. Your slides should be completed by Thursday.

     Here’s my own story of hours of effortful deliberate practice leading to moments of effortless flow. A few years ago, a producer named Juliet Blake called to ask if I’d be interested in giving a six-minute TED talk. “Sure,” I said. “Sounds fun!”
     “Wonderful! After you have your talk ready, we’ll have a video conference where we watch you give it, and we’ll give you some feedback. You know, something like a rehearsal.”
    Hmmm, “feedback” you say? Something other than applause? More slowly, I said, “Sure . . . that sounds fine.”
     I prepared a talk and on the appointed day connected with Juliet and her boss, the leader of TED, Chris Anderson. Staring into the webcam, I delivered my talk in the allotted time. Then I waited for my effusive praise.
     If there was any, I missed it.
     Instead, what I got was Chris telling me he’d gotten lost in all my scientific jargon. Too many syllables. Too many slides. And not enough clear, understandable examples. Further, how I’d come to this whole line of research—my road from teacher to psychologist—was unclear and unsatisfying. Juliet agreed. She added that I’d managed to tell a story with absolutely zero suspense. The way I’d designed my talk was like telling the punch line of a joke at the very beginning.
     Ouch! That bad, huh? Juliet and Chris are busy people, and I knew I wouldn’t get a second chance at getting coached. So I forced myself to listen. Afterward, I pondered who knew better how to give a great talk on grit: them or me?
     It didn’t take long to realize that they were the experienced storytellers, and I was the scientist who needed feedback to make her talk better.
     So I rewrote the talk, practiced in front of my family, and got more negative feedback. “Why do you say ‘Um’ all the time?” my older daughter, Amanda, asked. “Yeah, why do you do that, Mom?” my younger daughter, Lucy, chimed in. “And you bite your lip when you’re nervous. Don’t do that. It’s distracting.”
     More practice. More refinements.
     Then the fateful day arrived. I gave a talk that bore only a weak resemblance to the one I’d originally proposed. It was better. A lot better. Watch that talk and you’ll see me in flow.

Duckworth, Angela. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (pp. 133-135). Scribner. Kindle Edition.