Presenter Guide
Writing Learning Outcomes
Crafting strong learning outcome language is a crucial piece of any educational project. Learning outcomes define what each participant will learn as a result of engaging with the professional development experience you have designed. You should identify specific learning outcomes that have a clear relationship with the topic being presented and articulate what and how learners will think about, know, or do differently. Learning outcomes are often presented in sets of outcome statements to encapsulate key takeaways from the educational program they are tied to.
For example, here is a learning outcome set from the first module of Recreation for Wellbeing, an eight-week virtual course that focuses on understanding wellbeing and advocating for the impact of wellbeing on campus communities through development of an action plan:
Module 1: Foundations of Wellbeing
By completing this module, learners will be able to:
- Articulate the differences between wellness and wellbeing
- Explain the components of the inter-association definition of wellbeing
- Use the Inter-association definition to reflect on one’s own wellbeing
Want some guidance in writing your learning outcomes? Check out these resources:
- University of Arkansas' guide on using Bloom's taxonomy, a learning framework that breaks down levels of learning into cognitive categories and offers example keywords to support and describe each level. Also see their Before & After workshop of learning outcomes.
- UC San Diego's worksheet for the ABCD (Audience, Behavior, Condition, Degree) learning outcome heuristic, also touching on the importance of Bloom's taxonomy
- This short webinar relating these concepts to a NIRSA professional event and audience:
Developing Effective Presentation Skills
Knowing your audience, telling engaging stories, rehearsing your presentation: these are a few common tips to elevate your presenting skills in front of a crowd. Let's take a look at resources that can help you in the planning, design, and practice stages leading up to your presentation.
- Three types of skills to practice to become an amazing public speaker from the Center for Arts & Language: psychological, physical, and rhetorical
- A universal design checklist from University of Washington to ensure everyone is welcomed
- Presenting for Impact, a presentation skills training series developed by Tagoras and offered through NIRSA
Staying on Target
Although your presentation's title and description will often be developed well before the date of presentation, it is crucial that the content you present matches up with both of these areas along with the set of learning outcomes. Attendees select sessions to attend based on the description language, so changes to the topic or focus of your presentation not communicated to your audience weaken the potential success of your session. Be sure to stick to your description and learning outcomes as you design your presentation and provide context and explanation for any external resources you offer.
Topics are framed as "tracks" for the purposes of program design, offering conference participants the opportunity to participate in a series of sessions on the same functional area or theme. NIRSA's Conference and Campus Rec Expo aligns its call for proposals with the following tracks:
- Aquatics
- Community Programming, Youth Camps & Special Events
- Equity, Diversity & Inclusion
- Esports
- Facility Management, Planning & Design
- Fitness
- Higher Education Issues, Trends & Theories
- Intramural Sports, Officiating & Extramurals
- Leadership & Management
- Marketing
- Membership Services
- Outdoor Programs
- Small College & Community College
- Sport Clubs
- Student & Staff Development
- Technology
- Wellness
- Wellbeing
With Wellbeing now operating as a distinct track from Wellness in our program design, we recommend resources such as the Inter-association Definition of Wellbeing and Wellbeing in Higher Education Week as foundational pieces for background and framing within these two tracks.
