Overcoming Public Speaking Anxiety

Lecture 09: Charles Bamforth, professor and chair of food science and technology at UC Davis, specializes in brewing beer. In this lecture, Prof. Bamforth describes his teaching methods and provides examples for communicating complex ideas to non-academic audiences. For example, he explains how salt dissolves in water in a way that someone with no experience in chemistry or physics can understand.

Lecture 08: Fernando Socorro, an Information Technology specialist at UC Davis, discusses uses of computer visual aids including PowerPoint and the Mac equivalent. Fernando demonstrates good uses and bad uses, and gives tips on how to make your visual aid the most effective for communicating with an audience. The focus in this lecture is the technical aspect of presentation aids.

Lecture 07: Barbara Myslik describes effective uses of presentation aids, including Power Point. When should you use a visual aid? What are common mistakes and how can you avoid them? How can you use a visual aid to get your message across to the audience and be remembered?

Lecture 06: This lecture by Barbara Myslik addresses how to organize the information in your presentation. A practical example of this is given while Myslik outlines a student's presentation. (This video file is cut short.)

Lecture 05: Barbara Myslik presents different approaches to organizing a presentation. With many ways to organize the information, the best method often depends on the audience, she says. What are the main points you want the audience to remember? How can your organization influence what the audience learns?

Lecture 04: Thomas Roe, a licensed clinical psychologist and the coordinator for graduate student counseling services at UC Davis, specializes in working with graduate students, stress and anxiety, and biofeedback. In this lecture he describes techniques students can use to reduce public speaking anxiety and explains the resources that the Counseling and Psychological Services center offers to students. At the end of the lecture, Barbara Myslik explains how to avoid some common mistakes speakers make and the “four C’s” of public speaking.

Lecture 03: Michael Motley, UC Davis professor of communication, talks about his approach to reducing public speaking anxiety known. In this lecture, Motley explains how communication orientation differs from the more common performance orientation that anxious speakers have. He explains how a shift in orientation can help reduce anxiety. Motley wrote "Overcoming Your Fear of Public Speaking: A Proven Method" New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Lecture 02: Sharon Sausto Lasser is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with Kaiser Psychiatry. In this lecture she gives us an introduction to anxiety and addresses the following questions: What is anxiety? What causes anxiety? What are the symptoms? When is it helpful? When is it a disorder? What are the treatments? What other aids can help manage anxiety?

Lecture 01: Instructors Margaret Swisher and Barbara Myslik introduce the topics to be covered in GEO 298, a graduate-level course on public speaking available to students in all disciplines at UC Davis.