All academic presentations conform to a general template that requires the alignment of thematic concepts, evidence and analysis. These will distinguish the final form of your U8 contextual report. We’ll frame these sections using the familiar terms from Dubberly’s model (introduced in stage one) of observe, make and reflect.
These parts of presentation are always in roughly the same proportion to each other. In a written academic presentation of about 2500 words for U8, I would suggest that the main parts of the presentation are a thematic exposition that establishes the background ideas, tools and personalities, that inform your work; a presentation of case-study evidence; and an analysis of your case-study material in relation to the themes established in your thematic introduction. These are book-ended by short passages of introduction and conclusion.
Think of the thematic section as establishing the conversation you want to be part join with by reference to personalities, ideas and objects. Your platform projects are your contributions to that conversation…and the conversation is a big part of a community of practice.
The analysis and conclusions should state how your presentation evidences the assessment criteria and achieves the learning outcomes in order to identify a community of practice (the title of the unit).
Accordingly, the general template for presentation is
Introduction (200 words)
Thematic Conversation (800 words) Reflective mode
Evidence presented as case studies based on your reflective platform project statements (3 x 300 words = 900 words) Descriptive mode
Analysis (400 words) Reflective mode
Conclusion (200 words) Critical mode
Bibliography Presented according to the Harvard system
Each of these sections is made up of distinct passages of text that do something to present or back-up your work and thinking. All of these sections of writing are shorter than than what you have already done in stage one. We’ll return to this structural template.