Pointers for Making Speech Days Go Smoothly

One perennial problem in the oral comm class--and really, any performance based class--involves getting through student performances smoothly. This is at once a logistical problem and a mental capacity problem. First, we've all had days where we planned on getting through ten speeches and every single student somehow takes ten minutes to get started, the technology explodes, and so on. And secondly, there's that other pesky problem: how on Earth are we supposed to keep so much stuff in our heads as we sit through ten student speeches?

I'll address a few things I do to make sure things go smoothly.

1) Make students upload their PowerPoints in advance.
In ELMS, I have created an assignment explicitly for students to upload their visual materials. It is worth zero points, I do not grade it, and it is strictly practical. Make sure that when you set up the assignment, you let students post a URL or upload a file (since some will want to use a Prezi):

On speech day, before students get up to perform, click on the "download submissions" link on the main assignment page. It will let you download a ZIP file that has every single student's PowerPoint, organized by last name. You'll want to weep it's so beautiful.

2) Make sure everything works technology-wise. 
Sometimes technology fails. Okay, often technology fails. Arrive to your classroom a few minutes early to make sure everything's in working order so you can get OIT on the case before you need to start having students perform. Or, if that's not possible because you teach two classes in different rooms back-to-back, try to visit the classroom the previous day or that morning to check. It's not ideal, but it works.

3) Let students know it's going to be brisk in advance. 
Let students know that on speech days to arrive on time, be prepared on arrival, and that there won't be more than a minute or two between each speech. If you like to do Question and Answer exercises, perhaps allocate those to a discussion board post after the class, or have students write down a series of questions to save for the end if there's time. [You also might've worked an extra day of speeches into your schedule, to guarantee that there's time to get through everyone and have some discussion questions. That's okay too.]

4) Take good qualitative notes; grade that night.
Everybody's got their style of grading, but if you're struggling with spending way too long on grades, this is an approach I use.

This is what I've found to be the fastest, best way to give students fair feedback on their speeches that occupies as little of my time as possible on grading. During their speeches, I create a basic list of the main categories on the rubric. Literally, it's just a list of every item on the rubric. During the speech, I make sure that I type up at least one piece of concrete, qualitative, observational feedback for each item on the rubric. By "observational," I mean--literally, something I observe about the speech (a particular place their hand gestures are weird, a point or argument that was particularly astute, what percentage of the time they spend making eye contact, etc.--concrete things that are justification for grading later). I don't worry about the points at this time, because I probably won't be making fair decisions in-the-moment anyway.

Then, owing to the sheer horribleness of my memory, I try to sit down and grade the speeches the same day, or within the next two to three days if possible. If my qualitative notes are good, it doesn't take me long to translate them into quantitative grades in the rubric. I then tidy up the notes, add some comments, and post those in the "comments" section beneath the rubric.

This is efficient, the grades are fair, and I can rest easy knowing that the points I awarded are grounded in clear pieces of evidence I observed during their presentations. And I don't have to spend too much time in class typing feedback between speeches--when the student stops talking I can move on.

Hope these help--and feel free in the comments to suggest any strategies you use to make sure speech days aren't a mess!