Chapter Five, Making connections

According to Merriam-Webster, concrete context means:

1: naming a real thing or class of things
                 the word poem is concrete, poetry is abstract  

3 a: characterized by or belonging to immediate experience of actual things or events
   b: specific, particular <a concrete proposal>
   c : real, tangible <concrete evidence>

 When presenting, it is a good idea for the speaker to be prepared to offer an example of what is to come. It was interesting as I read Burmark’s illustration on asking the audience to picture a rose in their head (pg. 71), I automatically thought of a beautiful rose picked from my garden.  It’s how you engage the learner with their senses that will make the experience more concrete.

This chapter articulates the real life experiences to the audience.  Burmark gives plenty of examples on how to present more concretely by creating examples, simulations, and real-life experiences. Burmark (pg. 74) continues to talk about how a classroom teacher has an advantage because they know their audience and have time to analyze the presentations to make them more concrete. She gives many great examples of how to change a presentation that I hope to use in the classroom. In my class we will be going into communication through technology and I was already thinking of using many visual pictures to explain and have students make their own assumptions of concrete ideas with them

Some advice I learned from this chapter is to know your audience, know what will interest them and keep them interested with concrete context.

                Burmark, L. (2011). They Snooze You Lose: The educator’s guide to successful presentations. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Context content. 2012. Merriam-Webster.com Retreived February 15, 2012, from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concrete