Pecha Kucha – The 7-Minute Professional Development

Remember the 8-minute abs craze? We can beat that. Here’s 7-minute professional development (PD)! Pecha Kucha is Japanese for “chit chat.” It’s a storytelling format where the presenter shares 20 slides with 20 seconds of information for each slide. The entire presentation is only 6 minutes and 40 seconds!

Benefits of Pecha Kucha as a Professional Development Platform

• Bite-sized PD – How many professional development sessions have you attended that go on and on and on…Pecha Kucha forces the presenter to highlight the most important information without the fluff. 
• Jack of all trades – You can learn a little about lots of things, and then decide if you want to delve further into the topic with more traditional PD.
• Informal and on-demand – Because Pecha Kuchas are pre-recorded, you have 24/7 access to the presentations that interest you. 

Using Pecha Kuchas in the Classroom

We know the average attention span of our students is 10-15 minutes. Pecha Kucha presentations capitalize on this knowledge, giving students information in chunks they can process and handle. These presentations are excellent for ”station rotation” models when students are at the independent station. They also work well in hybrid or virtual classroom settings. 

Even better, you can have students create their own Pecha Kuchas. You will be incorporating speaking and writing skills, as well as asking students to locate the main ideas and most important information related to their topic. They have to learn to be very concise and clear. 

CCSS Speaking and Learning Standards, Grade 5

Here are some examples of student-created Pecha Kuchas:

• Southern Lehigh Middle School
• Durango High School
• Catherine Cronin

Creating Pecha Kuchas

When you decide you want to make your own Pecha Kucha, here are some helpful tips so you can try to perfect the flow of your presentation:

• Find great quality images (make sure to give proper attribution, or use sources such as Pixaby or Unsplash). 
• Minimize your use of text.
• Use the auto-advance feature in PowerPoint to keep your slides moving every 20 seconds.
• Keep talking, even if your slides don’t match perfectly with your speech. Don’t interrupt the flow.
• Tell a story. Pecha Kucha is an art form, so be creative. 
• Practice until it feels natural. Don’t script your presentation; create an outline that lets your story shine.

Pecha Kuchas about Pecha Kuchas

If I haven’t mentioned “Pecha Kucha” enough, then here are some Pecha Kuchas about Pecha Kuchas:

• Matthew Bird
• Heike Philp

A Few of Our Own

Interested in giving it a try? Share your creations and tag us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter!