Speak Out-Speak Back

Overview

The Why

Reinforced Values
Be Principled
Opportunity
Passion
Responsibility

The Speak Out-Speak Back activity affords students the opportunity to practice public speaking skills in a virtual environment and the skills of giving supportive and constructive feedback. Because the Speak Out Cards are pre-sorted by challenge level from easy, to medium, to hard, educators can choose the appropriate level of challenge to ensure there is minimal risk and high reward for students. As students’ confidence, public speaking skills, and ability to give and receive feedback increase, more time can be spent with the more challenging Speak Out Cards. 

Intro

A pitch is a short, persuasive explanation which may or may not include the opportunity for questions or feedback from the audience. Many people fear public speaking, but it is important to develop public speaking skills so we can share our ideas with others in a clear, concise, compelling, and engaging manner. In this activity, you will be given a prompt for which you will craft a response and then pitch it to your classmates for their consideration and feedback.

Social and Emotional Skills

1. Students will engage in Self-Awareness through this activity as they prepare and present their pitches. The level of self-awareness will vary depending on whether students are writing responses to a prompt versus recording and uploading their pitches for later feedback. When asking the class to critique a student’s pitch, remember to also ask the student to give themselves feedback. Specifically, when giving feedback to themselves, ask them to identify an emotion they felt before, during, and after the pitch. Additionally, ask them to identify what they felt most confident about during their pitch and what they felt least confident about.
2. Students are practicing Relationship Skills as they listen to peers share their responses to the Speak Out prompts. While listening, whether virtually or in-person, they are giving verbal and/or non-verbal cues that can impact the speaker’s behavior. When students respond to a Speak Out Card prompt, their peers will need to provide clear feedback that is constructive AND supportive. Those giving feedback will need to consider the sincerity and tone being conveyed by the words they choose.

Preparation

• Determine how you will implement the activity and conduct the debrief. Options to consider:
  • Conduct the activity verbally in real time: You can have one student respond publicly to the Speak Out Card prompt and have the other students provide feedback verbally or by writing comments in the chat/text area.
  • Conduct the activity verbally and asynchronously: You can provide the Speak Out Card prompt, have students go off-line to record their response to the prompt, using Flipgrid for example, and then have them post their videos for the entire class to watch. Once posted, students can then watch the videos and provide verbal or written feedback.
  • Conduct the activity as a writing exercise: You can provide the Speak Out Card prompt and then have students submit their written responses using an appropriate text-based platform.
  • Protip: If having students respond in writing to a Speak Out Card prompt, consider including in the instructions a requirement about grammar, spelling, punctuation, number of sentences, etc. to reinforce language arts skills.

• Before conducting Speak Out-Speak Back, review the Speak Out Cards to determine if any of the prompts at the level of challenge you select might be inappropriate because of the sensitive nature of the prompt in the context of your students’ lives. Because the purpose of this activity is to increase students’ confidence and skills as public speakers, the selection of which Speak Out Cards to use should not have the potential to negatively impact those objectives.

Directions

• Speak Out Cards come in three levels of challenge: easy (30 seconds to pitch), medium (60 seconds to pitch), and hard (90 seconds to pitch).
• Let them know how you will decide who will speak, which level of challenge the Speak Out cards will represent, how long they will be expected to speak, the type of speaking they will do (real time, asynchronous), and how audience feedback will be given.
• If having student record their presentations asynchronously: 
  • Tell them which public speaking skills you will look for in their recorded pitches. For example, the first time you do Speak Out Cards, you may only expect that they speak for the entire time allotted. As they become more confident, you might expect them to speak louder and more clearly, make more eye contact with the camera, have a better introduction and conclusion, etc.
• Which cards should you use?
  • The first time you conduct this activity, begin with the ones designated as easy. This will give students an opportunity to gain confidence before moving on to those designated as medium or hard. 
  • As student gain more practice, allow each student or the entire class to decide which level of Speak Out Cards challenge to use. 
• How long will they Speak Out? A good way to do this is as follows:
  • Easy = 30 seconds
  • Medium = 60 seconds
  • Hard = 90 seconds
• How will you pay them for Speaking Out? An easy way to do this is as follows:
  • Easy = 5 YE virtual dollars/points
  • Medium = 10 virtual YE dollars/points
  • Hard = 15 virtual YE dollars/points
• To set a positive tone and to provide students with an example of effective public speaking, begin the activity by taking the first card for yourself. Be sure to have students give you feedback as a way of having them practice giving supportive and constructive feedback.
• The Speak Back component of the activity comes from those students who are not speaking being assigned the role of providing supportive and constructive feedback. 
  • Make sure to discuss and give examples of what appropriate feedback sounds like. It is a good idea to remind students that different circumstances require different kinds of feedback and that all feedback should be supportive and constructive. Additionally, students should be reminded that YE activities are designed to build soft/career skills that are expected in a professional environment. For example:
    • Feedback can be in the form of a critique: “I could not hear or understand what you were saying. Because your ideas are good, next time please try to speak louder and more clearly.” 
    • Feedback can be in the form of a question: “You said your favorite thing to do is play Quidditch. I don’t know what that is. Can you explain it to me?” 
    • Feedback can be a compliment: “Thank you so much for sharing such a nice memory with us. It was very brave.”
• Now…Begin the activity! This will look differently depending on the implementation method you selected when preparing the activity.
  • Share the selected Speak Out card. When the designated student begins speaking or when your students go off-line to record their speeches, start the timer. 
  • Having pre-determined how feedback will be given, have students either verbally or in writing provide constructive feedback using one or more of the feedback types: a critique, a question, a compliment.
• Pay each student(s) who Spoke Out and those who Spoke Back.
• Repeat these steps often throughout your class, as practicing public speaking skills will build confidence and increase the quality of their ability to give compelling presentations.
• Protip: Challenge your students to give a Speak Out presentation to their families and have family members provide constructive feedback.

Debrief

These self-reflection debrief questions can be answered in writing, as a full group or in breakout rooms.

• Did I/we demonstrate humility when receiving feedback from my audience? 
  • Did I humbly accept their criticisms? 
  • Did I have appropriate dialogue with my audience when they Speak Back? 
  • Did I respect their feedback? 
• Did I/we provide appropriate feedback? 
  • Were my critiques constructive? 
  • Was I respectful? 
  • Did I give appropriate feedback based on the type of pitch that was given? 
• Did I/we demonstrate respect to those who spoke? 
  • Was I attentive to the speaker? 
  • Was I on my phone or doing something that was not giving my full attention to the speaker?