Week 6

Exercise 6.1: Choose your audience. (15 min)

For your rehearsal with friends, invite people from your Fan Club whom you know will be critical listeners and offer you constructive feedback. Try for at least three people who are not in your discipline to get a variety of perspectives. What one audience member finds clear and easy to understand, another may not.

Depending on how well you know your audience, you may want to expressly give them permission to critique you. Sometimes people are not sure whether they can give tough feedback. You need it—let them know that.

If you doubt the value of this exercise, listen to a winner:

“I always practice with friends. I tell them ‘I’m going to give this talk right now and I want you to watch it and tell me exactly what you think. Be brutal if you can and be honest with your opinion because I want to be better."

~Pewee Datoo Kolubah, Falling Walls Berlin 2024, 2nd place, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Saudi Arabia.

Exercise 6.2: Share the judging rubric with your audience. (10 min)

To help you measure where you are with your talk, the rubric I developed aims to bring your attention to the key elements of a successful GRC talk. Some of these criteria (e.g., audience, use of jargon) may not be explicitly included in the rubric for your local GRC, but I include them so that you do not overlook their importance.

Step 1: Start by giving your audience a couple of minutes to read the rubric and ask any questions about it.

Step 2: If you have specific details or moments that you want them to watch or listen for, tell them in advance. For example, “Do I go into too much detail with my methods?” or “Is my opening strong?” or “Did you hear any words that were unfamiliar?” or “Is my slide too simple? Too complex?” These ideas are captured in the rubric, but if you alert them to specific concerns, they are more likely to tune into them and be prepared to offer you real feedback.

For IMAGE, use screenshot of rubric

Exercise 6.3: Deliver your GRC talk to your audience and give them time to reflect on their feedback for you. (10 min)

When you rehearse with your audience, try to follow the rules for your GRC. Give your talk from memory. Keep to your time limit. If appropriate, refer to your slide or prop.

After you give your talk, give your audience a few minutes of silence to complete the rubric. If you are uncomfortable with silence, find something to read or do. While it may feel like nothing is happening, your friends are thinking, reviewing their notes, and deciding what to comment on. If you talk while they are filling out the rubric, you may cause them to get distracted from what they want to share or cause them to feel rushed to finish. When you embrace silence, you actually create space for your audience to give you more in-depth responses.

Pro Tip: Set a timer for five minutes while the audience completes the rubric. Be open to allowing them more time if it looks like they are still thinking/writing.

Exercise 6.4: Review the audience's feedback. (30 - 60 min)

For this step, you can handle it in different ways. I've listed them below, but my strong recommendation is for option A.

A) Have a group discussion going through the rubric criterion by criterion. Starting with “Audience,” you could ask each person how they scored you. This approach would spotlight any major differences in evaluation. If one friend rated you as “entirely,” but another rated you as “not at all,” this contrast in perspective is a place for discussion. Ask what you did that kept the one friend engaged but not the other. Talk about it. Find out why the second friend lost interest.

B) Invite each audience member to verbally share all of their feedback. As you listen, ask clarifying questions. If they don’t like the current opening, what ideas do they suggest for improving it?

C) Collect the paper rubrics and review them on your own. This option should be a last resort if you or your audience are short on time. Why is this a less-than-ideal option? I know myself, and I'm not the best note-taker. If I handed you my rubric without a conversation, I would worry that my comments might not be clear, or even worse, be misinterpreted. The combination of the rubric with the discussion gives all parties a chance to clarify their feedback.

Bonus Exercise: Watch a GRC talk with a friend while you both use the rubric to evaluate it. (30 min)

Compare notes after and see where you agreed and where you differed. Discuss your results with a focus on the particular points of the criteria that you evaluated differently. For example, maybe you marked the speaker as having an “entirely” clear message, but your friend was lost because s/he/they found it too technical, marking that criterion as “not at all.” As you discuss your different perceptions, keep in mind what they mean for your own talk.

Super Bonus Exercise: Use the GRC rubric to evaluate the recording of your solo rehearsal. (10 min)

Six weeks down, two to go!

Don't you just love watching the arrows move closer and closer to 100%? It is so affirming to know that your investment is paying off.

Kudos to you for memorizing your entire script, rehearsing with an audience (I know it was scary!), and handling their feedback with grace and appreciation.

After all you have done, the next two weeks will be lighter in terms of your Take First! tasks, but they are likely to feel a little more intense as the day of the event gets closer. Trust yourself, as well as the time and energy you have invested.