Thread by @AnaMaPorras

Today at lab meeting, I took a risk and instead of a regular research update, I ran a workshop (adapted from one I did w/ @BrianAguado) on how to present your research in under 3 mins. I didn’t give them a heads up and I was nervous but it was a HUGE success! #SciComm 1/n

I thought a lot about how to design it so it was interactive and practical. I borrowed a LOT of tips from @echoechoR (she has a class out you can sign up for!) on virtual engagement including: live polliong (using @Mentimeter), chat interactions, and room breakouts #Scicomm 2/n

Outline (took 1h15m)
1) Interactive poll to gauge everyone’s feelings around this topic
2) Why is this important?
3) Bad and good examples by me
4) Tips on how to do it better
5) Individual time to prep
6) Break into trios to practice once
7) Explain someone else’s work 3/n

I used the chat liberally to ask for participation (e.g. why was my first example so bad?) - it’s faster than waiting for people to speak up, easier if you have a poor connection, barrier of entry is lower, and people are less shy about typing. #SciComm 4/n

We started by discussing all the different reasons why being able to effectively communicate your research in short bursts of time is important. Both in professional settings as well as socially/public engagement. Again, we did that with the chat on @zoom_us #SciComm 5/n

I provided a few tips (time was limited so not a super comprehensive list). First, we spoke about the importance of preparing by asking yourself a simple set of questions to frame your thinking. Who, what, where, and most importantly, WHY should this audience care #SciComm 6/n

More concrete tips: relate to your audience, focus on WHY, minimize jargon, use analogies where possible, keep it simple, try to tell a story and don’t forget to have fun! #SciComm 7/n

Then my labamtes were off to first work individually on their summaries and later practice with each other. The break out rooms worked REALLY well for this and I felt we all interacted so much more than in normal meetings #SciComm 8/n

Overall, I was SO grateful that my labmates let me put them on the spot like that and still participated so fully. Zoom meetings don’t have to be passive and boring, we can use technology to make them entertaining, active, and worthwhile #SciComm 9/n

Also, check out this pre- and post-informal feedback. We created a word cloud using adjectives to describe how we feel when asked to explain our work. Left is pre-workshop, right is at the end. We made so much progress in such a short time 😭🥰
#SciComm 10/10