Honors Students Give Ted-Style Talks Online Public speaking is an element of almost any professional career. For that reason, learning to present ideas clearly, understandably, and with some degree of zeal is a fundamental skill for successful university graduates. Practicing and teaching those skills, however, is especially challenging in the age of COVID-19 and increased online learning. Dr. Ethan Mannon’s senior honors seminar at Mars Hill University has mitigated this difficulty by incorporating online TED*-style talks into the curriculum. Mannon said he chose to incorporate TED-style talks into the curriculum because it was something a bit different from the average academic presentation. This style, he said, was designed to help students experience and call on a broader set of skills than they might normally encounter in a university class. “I think students see a lot of academic-style presentations in college, both from professors and from each other,” he said. By academic-style, Mannon said he is referring to fact-heavy presentations with power point slides and (if relevant) charts that convey a great deal of researched information. By contrast, he said, “TED-style talks are designed to be more personal and less reliant on slides or an avalanche of data. TED-style talks are driven by the speaker’s personality, and his or her passion for the subject.” By planning this style of talk for the course’s final project, Mannon said he hoped to encourage students to research a topic they truly enjoyed and gain skills in conveying information—as well as some of their own passion—about the topic to others. Some of the topics covered by “TED-style” talks from honors students this semester were: • •
Student Maggie Langheim (shown above with Professor Mannon, and over Zoom) was one of several students who gave online TED-style talks as part of the senior honors seminar course.
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The Effects of Cerebral Palsy and Mental Health (Marin Sebestyen)
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The Mental Health of Female Athletes (Maggie Langheim)
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The Psychosocial Effects of COVID-19 on Healthcare Workers (Morgan Hall)
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What it Means to be Part of Foster Families (Claudia Chandler)
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Athletes and Depression (Gini Joy)
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The Corporate Culture at Google (Tanner Hodgson)
The Intersection of the LGBTQIA Community and Christianity (Emily Kraft)
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Teaching Leadership in the Elementary School Classroom (Alyssa Jamerson)
The Economic Value of Biodiversity (Sarah Bracken)
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Classical and Neoclassical Art and Its Influence on Trends in Fashion (K.D. Adaire Cromer)
Readers can access the MHU students’ TED-style talks at www.mhu.edu/honors.
*“TED talks” are conference presentations about technology, education, and design, which are coordinated by TED Conferences, LLC, at events all over the world.
Mars Hill, the Magazine | Spring 2022 15
