The opposite of what I’d think:

I’ve been talking to my PI recently about going to a conference in September.  Seeing as I just started in the lab at the beginning of June, and that I’m taking over someone’s project, I don’t have a ton of my own data yet.  But, this conference is one that I am extremely interested in going to.  It’s a graduate student-only immunology conference called IGSIC, and I’ll have the opportunity to network with my immunology peers from all over the world.

It’s set now that I will be going to the conference.  The most recent discussion I had with my PI was whether I should submit for a poster, or for an oral presentation.

I went into the conversation thinking that although I feel comfortable talking about the project, I don’t know that I really will have enough of my own data by September to warrant giving an oral presentation.  A poster, on the other hand, is a bit more conducive to showing preliminary data.

Surprisingly, my PI took exactly the opposite point of view!  From his perspective, an oral presentation is more risky when you have more new data and are closer to publishing a paper, because you’ll want to avoid having too much data “leaked” in advance.  He felt that I would be okay applying for an oral presentation because I don’t have a lot of data over what the lab has already published on this project.

Though I’m happy that I got the green light to apply to give a talk, I was a bit surprised by his take on the situation!  I always think of posters as being more preliminary data, and talks being more for cohesive, later-stage projects.  I’m particularly wondering how other labs handle posters vs talks at conferences, and what the rationale is behind the decision.  Obviously I am doing whatever my PI decides, but I am curious about opinions on this topic in general.

PowerPoints (versus?) Learning

During the week, I read this interesting article about the downfalls of using PowerPoints as the backbone of presentations.  Ironically, I’m spending this weekend reviewing 7 PowerPoints worth of slides for an exam I have on Monday, and I can’t help but think how much easier my studying would be if I’d been engaged with the information during the lectures instead of staring at slides full of information that I now have to blindly memorize.  Many of the points brought up in the article are reminiscent of what a talk I heard in February said about the future of science education.  There is little difference between what has been identified as necessary changes to science education, and necessary changes to science communication at the professional level:

Engagement is key.

Sitting silently for an hour or more, listening to someone ramble on about pictures they’ve tacked haphazardly onto slides, and then being expected to remember that information days or years down the road seems like exactly the opposite of a productive way to learn.  As a learner, having a discussion with the speaker, or at the very least, being able to take notes in your own words on what is being taught instead of having to rely on the figures in the slides for context, should make the information much easier to recall later.  Learning is difficult if there is no personal connection to the material.

Yes, figures are important, especially in scientific presentations where data is pictures, graphs, charts, and tables.  That being said, there is a difference between presenting relevant information in this matter and relying on it to be the backbone of an entire presentation.  It is equally important to present good information and to convince others that that information is important, and I’d argue that the format of most lectures is not helping the second point come to fruition.  If your slides tell it all, why should anyone listen to you?  And therein lies the problem:  if the people you are talking to aren’t listening, the information you are hoping to convey is lost.

So I believe that the nature of scientific presentations- at any level, whether it be seminars, classes, conferences, or anything else- needs to change.  Change takes effort, but I argue that if scientists took the effort that they now put into designing PowerPoint presentations and instead put it towards improving their public speaking skills, this change would not be as difficult as it might appear.  In the long run, I wholeheartedly believe that it will change the nature of science for the better by engaging more learners and making scientists better able to communicate with each other, instead of just being passive observers to others’ work in the field.