What?
My group, consisting of Beth Nanson, May Hasegawa, Emma Clark and myself presented on the topic of Negotiation and Conflict Management. Admittedly, this topic was initially among the bottom three of our desired list and having been the last group chosen in the lottery, we were not particularly thrilled on the subject. Slowly, however, as we discussed the different components, activities and media options to include, we became more engaged in our topic and had a fantastic experience with our tutorial presentation.

We had several meetings prior to our tutorial to discuss paths we could take to provide an engaging and interesting tutorial on a topic that many of our colleagues likely had training in. We incorporated various components into our tutorial to teach the material in a way that was applicable and well-absorbed.

Here is a link to our presentation.
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So What?
This topic is key in our profession as future dietitians and members of interdisciplinary health care teams. We have outlined the relevance to us a students, in group work assignments, and as dietitians in health care teams and with patients, in our presentation. Conflict resolution is referred to in the ICDEP and The National Interprofessional Competency Framework. It is a valuable skill to have outside of our professional lives as well, with relationships, interviews, family, and friends.

We revised and refined our learning objectives several times to ensure it was clear, concise and specific. This proved to be challenging, but ultimately a beneficial lesson for future LOs. Another portion in which a dense focus was placed was the in class activity. Past groups have simply cut the class into quadrants, leaving students working with the same group each week and having (generally) one primary speaker. Instead we designed a lesson plan to include pairs to ensure full participation. Finally, we understood the (seemingly) dull nature of our topic and included engaging media and activities, such as the optical illusions, a video, and both personal and in class activities. These aspects are important in keeping the audience engaged and to provide an alternative to verbal, lecture-based flow of information.
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Now What?
We were pleased to receive feedback from our fellow classmates and instructor regarding our tutorial. We will surely be presenting to our class several more times throughout the next few years and will gain better public speaking and group facilitation skills with each encounter. Below is a list of both positive qualities we believe we had and improvement we’d like to work on in future presentations. Both are from either fellow classmates, our instructor, or from personal reflection.

Positive Qualities:
– Use of reflections, illusions & video; keeps class engaged throughout
– Group activity designed to have every single person contributing
– Frequent switches of speaker; keeps audience engaged
– Pre-tested media and technical aspects; avoided technical issues
– Use of real-life, practical case scenarios for class activity

Future Goals:
– Allow students more time to think after posing a question
– Professional language skills – avoid “um”, “kind of”, “like”
– Space out media portion for even distribution throughout

*Note: Please click on each photo to be directed to source.

• Year 3