The entire Wonder and HSD team appreciates you taking the time to share your passion and expertise at this event. 

There are a few important goals for the event

• Our goal is to bring together experienced and knowledgeable homeschoolers to help support current and next generation homeschool families.

• In addition to provoking meaningful conversations, this event hopes to help families foster a love of God, a love of learning, good character, inspiration, and wonder in their homes and communities.

• We want to offer attendees actionable, practical, and educational content.

Requirements

• For online presentations, use Google Slides with a minimum font size of 16 pt

Be Prepared

• Please be available at least thirty minutes prior to your talk. 

Workshop Format

• Total workshop time is 45-minutes
• Presentation & Q&A can be divided as needed

Suggested Presentation Flow

• Intro (5 minutes max)
• Content (25-30 minutes total)
• Q&A (10-15 minutes)

Presentation Tips

• Rehearse and time yourself
• Be clear, concise, and follow a logical/easy to follow order
• Capture the audience with captivating slide content
• One topic per slide
• Do not rush: Limit slides to content that can be reasonably covered in your allotted presentation time
• Minimalist slides: too much text can be distracting; keep bullets to a minimum
• Avoid Animation: Rather than using animation, build graphics over multiple slides
• Co-speakers: Ensure you work seamlessly together
• Co-speakers and moderators: Avoid overlapping on points. Finding both commonality and differences is healthy and welcomed.
• Wonder may edit all visual content for clarity and continuity. 

Q&A Tips

• Begin your presentation on time
• Manage your allotted time properly
• Cover all planned content in your allotted time
• Plan for questions. Move through questions quickly to get through as many as possible.
• Not every question must be answered. Avoid answering duplicate questions and questions that need more time to understand. Direct attendees to resources, if needed. 
• If you don’t know the answer to the question it’s okay. Let them know and move to the next question.
• Unlike online presentations, we suggest incorporating open dialog and questions during the presentation time, rather than waiting until the end to address questions. 

Use Examples

• Minimize generalizations: Offer hard facts, case studies, practical real-world scenarios that will help them be more effective or intentional
• Explain how things work. Teach them how to find solutions to a problem or issue. 

Company Promotions

• Your presentation should not be used to sell, market, or promote your individual or company products or services. 
• The moderator will include time within the session for you to briefly share about your products, services, and how attendees can contact you in the future. 

Logistics For In-Person Presentations

• Breakout rooms may be equipped with the following items:
  • Screen, pre-loaded presentation on master computer
  • Sound equipment and microphones
  • Whiteboard and markers

Homeschool resources are of abundance. This means that families can find many options to fulfill their home education needs. This also means sorting through all the options can be discouraging and overwhelming. We want to minimize some of the anxiety with encouragement and knowledge to help families feel competent and confident in their decision to home educate their children. 

Please keep the following in mind when delivering your presentation for your workshop. 

• Remain on Topic:  Attendees expect to hear content based on the session description.

• Practical Application: Share practical examples of the how. Rather than focusing on the issue encountered, spend more time on details such as the concrete application, overcoming issues, challenges, unexpected twists, failures, relational impacts, learned lessons and best practices. 

• Your Opinion Matters: Your unique situation and perspective are important to share. Differing opinions enhance a topic.

• Avoid Pro Acronyms: Abbreviations and acronyms can confuse attendees if they’re not familiar with the content your presenting. 

• Slandering Not Allowed: As the saying goes, if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything at all. It’s just as easy to share about the aspects you’ve liked on a curriculum or product you’re currently using, as opposed to bashing one you’ve stopped using. Slandering is not acceptable in any Homeschool Days event content. This means, your presentation should not disparage any other method, product, or company.

• Honest Feedback: During the Q&A session, you may find attendees ask questions about what didn’t work or what you’ve tried and don’t like. In this case, your response should be honest and can include why something didn’t work for you, but should not speak negatively about said topic. For example: Someone may ask about two different math curricula and mention them by name. You can respond similarly, “My children did not grasp the concepts well with a spiral math curriculum. I know families who highly recommend PRODUCT, but it didn’t work for my family. We like how with PRODUCT my children could build upon each skill and review learned skills in each lesson.” This applies to products, services, methods, etc.

• Dialogue: Keep dialogue relaxed and natural. Most workshop sessions will be followed by a time for Q&A. Although we plan to prepare for likely questions, be open to engaging attendees during this time. 

• Engagement: Show your passion, establish your confidence,  express your humanity.