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How to get better at teaching from the board?
As a student, I almost always prefer when instructors use the board, rather than slides. As a relatively inexperienced instructor, though, I keep reverting back to slides (unless I'm working out problems), because frankly, it's a useful crutch.
Specifically, I find it difficult to teach from the board because:

When preparing a lecture, I know exactly what to do if I'm preparing slides. I don't know how to prepare to teach from the board. I'm not going to read off of lecture notes (what would be the point of me being there if I did?). I'm not experienced enough to teach a class without preparing something to keep me from rambling for 3 hours + scrawling gibberish all over the board.
I am uncomfortable spending so much time facing away from my students.
It's hard be effective at writing and delivery at the same time.
I'm concerned about legibility. This is partly addressed in Techniques for good board handwriting, but I'm also concerned about diagrams and drawings (I'm not much of an artist).

Any suggestions on how to overcome these issues and make teaching on the board easier? ("Practice" is always a good approach, but I'm looking to reduce my learning curve so that my students won't suffer as much.)
Related: In teaching, what are the advantages of using slides over doing board work?.

Weird. This question asks about advantages of slides, and all the answers are about advantages of board work. Now I'm asking how to get better at board work, and I get answers telling me why I shouldn't ditch the slides :)

In case this is an issue: are you a native-level speaker of the language you are teaching in?  I can imagine teaching from an outline, or talking while drawing a diagram, would be much harder if it took any effort to think about the right words to say.

@AlexanderWoo I am a native English speaker. I am teaching engineering, though, and I do need to make a deliberate effort while speaking to use consistent and precise terminology.

If you're talking about teaching mathematics, then there is a Mathematics Educators SE you might try out.

@ff524 Ditch the slides.

http://ak-hdl.buzzfed.com/static/2015-03/26/19/enhanced/webdr06/enhanced-25942-1427414324-7.jpg

Just an idea: how about instead of a board, using an overhead projector and marker pen on acetate? Then you're still live-drawing when it improves the lecture, but a) you're facing forwards, b) writing is more like normal writing, c) you can have key acetates on your table drawn up in advance which you can look at to remind yourself not to wander off topic, and d) you have the option to use those ready-drawn acetates if you're running out of time or don't feel confident re-creating a specific drawing.

Indeed, a big question is how to make a "lecture" have more value than the text alone. After all, why not just print things up and hand them out?
First, to reiterate the obvious, much practice, a.k.a. "rehearsal", is necessary before one can do all the little things that make a live performance go better than a pre-recorded or lip-synced one. I do think those comparisons are apt.
That is, it's only when you've gone through the material so many times that you can remember it nearly effortlessly that your delivery of it could be natural, fluid, and unhesitant.
About technique: as other answers noted, don't let there be too much absolute-quiet while you're writing. Until you can learn to talk about what you're writing while you're writing it, it is best to write a little, talk a little, write a little. This also lets note-takers catch up. With practice, it seems possible to say a different thing than one is writing, although sometimes one's hand chooses a different syntax than one's hand, resulting in minor grammatical hilarity...
Indeed, be sure to spend most of your time facing the audience, looking people in the eye, etc. So, indeed, this leaves not-so-much time for writing, which, in fact, has (I claim) the excellent outcome that one is forced to choose "highpoints" only, to write, and then "discuss".
Altogether, I'd say write very "telegraphically", meaning no complete sentences, indeed, very few English (e.g.) words. After all, formulas can be written, while sentences can be spoken. The two mediums can complement each other.
I've recently stopped giving long, complicated proofs in lecture (mathematics...), but only giving the highpoints, with complete details available in PDFs on the course web-site. Often, I get the PDFs done in time so that students can either look at them during lecture on a tablet and use some mark-up software, or print them out (!?!) and mark on them.
Handwriting takes practice... Use your whole arm, make big motions. It's not handwriting, but arm-writing.
Every time you get a few critical things written, you can move around (which will result in better breathing, better projection, better connection with audience) and (expressively, both in intonation and body language) elaborate... referring to the on-line or off-line supporting reading material for finer or uglier details.
So, yes, some lower-level technique needs to be practiced, and also some larger-scale viewpoint made very clear in one's mind, so that one knows the "highpoints" vividly, and can nearly-effortlessly summon up and convey them. So, yes, I think it is possible (if one wants it, and if one practices) to make a "live" lecture have much more psychological impact on the audience than a mere text. (Or than reading a text out loud... which is what any sort of slides very easily degenerates into...)

I forgot to address "notes": I usually bring a pile of printed-out PDFs as "props", and occasionally to be sure some delicate details are right in formulas... but usually I will have mentally reviewed/rehearsed the lecture both a previous day and then again a couple hours prior to "showtime". That is, I try to visualize the pace and what will get onto the blackboard, etc. If I attempt to make outlines, I find that I often diverge from them, so they become distracting or useless soon into a lecture...

I've observed (as a student and as a TA) that many students think that taking notes means copying the contents of the board to your notebook. After the lecture, they can't understand their notes anymore because they failed to write down the essential details spoken out loud. Do you have efficient ideas to counter this? I sometimes remind that every formula I write on the board will be in the PDFs distributed to students, so you don't have to spend your time mindlessly copying these, but that may discourage making any notes (the students may think that I meant "please don't write anything").

@JiK, I do not have any good solution to the problem that many students are bad note-takers, and/or misunderstand what they should be doing. I do encourage my students to write both what I write and what I say, but many complain that they just can't... Thus, recognizing this "failure point", my written stuff has to be pretty complete, and, on the other hand, the spoken part will be heard, at least, and can have an impact that way (even if it is "lost" long-term by not making it into their notes). I'm reconciled to the fact that there is inefficiency and loss ...

@JiK a good lecture allows students to take good notes, meaning that it does not give more informations than it is humanly possible to write down, and it highlights what is important. But at some point students need to learn how to take good notes and the problem should globally be addressed by your institution, if students do not have this skill when starting to study there. It can not be solve solely by improving a lecture.

@Kolaru, in my experience, students simply do not believe that their note-taking outlook + skills could possibly be improved, so will not pay attention when "instructed" about it. Thus, it doesn't matter so much what is "possible", as what will actually transpire. Thus, my written materials and lecture. I suspect that the people whose meta-cognition is good enough so that they're good note-takers are also excellent at self-study, and hardly need me in the first place...

@paulgarrett I was taught note-taking in third grade and feel like I'm great at it, and I definitely get a lot of value from a good lecturer. Being autodidactic is great, having help in the form of lectures, homework, etc. is even better. All that is to say, you are valued and needed even by your best students. :)

As a student in a mathematics-based subject, my favourite lectures were the ones where I could just write down exactly what was on the board and end up with reasonably comprehensible notes. For some teaching styles and some subjects, it is actually possible to do this. (Though this is probably also because I had a good grasp of the background and didn't need much more than basic definitions and equations to jog my memory.)

My answer addresses mainly your first bullet point.

I'm not going to read off of lecture notes

I take a variant of the "read off of lecture notes" approach when I want to use the board.
I create an "outline" for the lecture, which summarizes the key concepts I want to cover, along with some illustrative example problems that I want to work through, if needed. I divide up how much time I want to spend on each section of the outline and example problems.

(what would be the point of me being there if I did?).

If you use an outline as I've described above, the point of you/me being there is to bring the outline to life: the outline is not (intended to be) exhaustive. An outline helps keep me on track so that I'm not spending too much time on one particular topic, and to get a quick reminder of what I need to move on to from wherever I currently am.
But, the extra stuff that I add to the lecture that is not in the outline comes from my own experiences with the topic, such as: key pitfalls that previous students have encountered when learning the material for the first time, practical implications of the material we're discussing, and so on.

I'm a fan of teaching from the board with an outline and I like to have approximate time landmarks on the outline. Usually I work backwards through the outline to put times in. For example, if I want five minutes at the end of a 50-minute lecture for questions, then the last topic has :45 next to it, and so on backwards with my best guess at how much time a topic will need or how much I want to spend on it.

I don't know how to prepare to teach from the board.

I generally prepare an outline of the lecture, with the titles of the most significant points. When needed, I prepare also sketches of the most complex diagrams and of the longer proofs with the most significant equations. I do this mainly to keep the notation consistent. If I have to give precise definitions of a few terms I write them down too. For a 3-hour lecture, this material can take between two to six A4 pages, depending on the lecture.

I am uncomfortable spending so much time facing away from my students.

You should not. You don't say which subject you lecture, but if you have to write equations or diagrams, write or draw them in small pieces and in between turn your attention to the students and explain what you are doing.
This is actually the most difficult part, something that many people don't know how to manage. I noticed this when examining students at an oral examination: if, for instance, I ask them to describe how a dual-slope analog-to-digital converter works, most of the students firstly draw the whole block diagram and then, only then, they start to speak. This is something that you, as a lecturer, should avoid because it would mean losing the class.

It's hard be effective at writing and delivery at the same time.

The hardest part is to keep your boards neat: when starting to explain something think carefully at what you need later and try to write this stuff on a board apart.

I'm also concerned about diagrams and drawings (I'm not much of an artist).

Don't rush, draw slowly. In any case, if it can be of comfort, I discovered that students are good at obtaining very good, coloured diagrams from my messy black-and-white ones.

A technique that I've found useful is to write your outline on the board at the start, as a list of bullet points and leave it there for the whole lecture. Re-use the rest of the board area as you need to. It reminds both you and the students of the "big picture". You can "tick off" each point as you start or finish that section, to keep everybody "on the same page" and avoid any "are we nearly there yet?" feelings developing through getting lost in the details.
This can work over more than one "lecture" session. For example I give training courses that last a full nine-to-five day, split into several sections. It's useful to start off with something like "OK, to carry out this process, we need to do the following things: A, B, C, D, and E" and write them up as a list in a corner of the board. "We'll cover A and B this morning, and C D and E after lunch..." And if some of the details of A are only necessary because of E, you have a "road map" of the whole process on the board to refer to at any time you need it.
Of course the students will almost certainly have the "road map" already as part of the course contents and handouts, but during the course I want them to be looking at me and at the board, not shuffling through their paperwork.

So, as with anything in teaching sometimes we have to adjust our styles to play to our strengths.  I don't like to be turned away for a long time so I rely a bit more heavily on things like PowerPoint.  Not as a teaching/presentation crutch but to display materials quickly without my having to write them out first.  If that's not possible consider handouts or using some web-based learning system so you don't have to stop class to write out a list.  And if you do need to turn to write something out, be sure and stop after each item to explain it and talk about why you put it up there.  (Repeating the item name also takes care of your legibility problem.)
Yeah, you're gonna need some practice, but give yourself time.  I think it takes three semesters to become a good teacher: the first to make a bunch of stupid mistakes, the second to over-correct for those mistakes, and the third to finally hit your stride.  So don't be too hard on yourself just starting out.

I once took a class in Farm Machinery and Implements.  The school was brand new and there were almost no books in the library.  Students were not asked to buy textbooks.  The instructor prepared his diagrams ahead of time (for example, showing how the tractor engine works) and would unroll them and tape them to the board.  Then he would talk about his drawings.  It seemed a little bit dinky but it worked well.
I visited a physics lecture recently where the professor used two overhead projectors and powerpoint slides.  There were three screens.  He would just walk back and forth to change the transparencies.
What I like about board lectures is that I can glance at the motivation and theorem statement in the first panel, glance at the proof in the second panel, and glance at the application problem in the third panel, and go back and forth at my own pace.  With the scrolling slides or smart board presentation, I lose control over the scrolling, and I can't look back at what appeared two screens ago.
Unless you're in a 200-seat auditorium, I doubt you're going to be able to work with three screens.  But you may be able to come up with a hybrid approach, with the sketches prepared ahead of time, on large paper and/or projected on a screen (either powerpoint or transparencies) -- since it sounds like the drawing is the part you're having the most trouble with.
Now, what sort of notes to have in your hand while lecturing at the board?  To answer that, let's think about what makes a good powerpoint slide: stay away from full prose, and go for skeleton writing and bullet points.  Well, you can do that too in the board lecture prep notes.
Do make sure there is something (outline or prose, it doesn't matter) available on your website that students can download after the lecture, so that they don't pay more attention to their notebooks than to you.
For a 50-minute lecture, you'll probably have three pages of notes to carry around with you as you move from panel to panel.  You can staple them together at one corner, or use a binder clip.
Schedule yourself in a classroom that is unoccupied right before your class.  Get there 15 minutes early and write some key material on the board before anyone gets there.
It's hard be effective at writing and delivery at the same time.  It's okay to simply pronounce the words as you write them if there's something you have to write down with clarity and precision, such as a theorem statement. It's also okay to be silent.  You don't need to be scintillating every minute of the class.  There is a certain soothing effect to be had from allowing people's minds to occasionally have a little rest.
Make sure there are opportunities for give and take with the students.  The more they are participating meaningfully, the less you'll feel like a fish in a fishbowl.
Be quite explicit about what material you want the students to have read before they arrive for that day's lecture.  If you see that a significant number of your students aren't managing to do that, you may need to do some little quizzes or clicker questions to train them into doing the reading before class.  (The minimal material you want them to read before class should be rather short -- to make this reliably doable.)  This will help prevent you from feeling that you have to reproduce a textbook chapter on your blackboard.
If it's a class of 20 or less, let some students put some problems on the board sometimes.  Everybody benefits from some blurring of the line of demarcation between instructor and students.
Ask a friend to come in and observe, to give you feedback.  It doesn't need to be someone in the exact same field.

I personally use slides and the board together when I teach (granted you need to have ample space to do so)
I use the slides as a point of reference for myself and for the main topics students need to know.
I then use the board to go into more detail of the topics and write/draw visuals and to elaborate on any student questions.
For example:
If I'm teaching about social media marketing on one slide the title may state "Most commonly used social media platforms" with the the information on the slide saying "Facebook" and "Twitter".
On the board I would outlines using Facebook and Twitter as a social media platform and may mention points that will later be seen on the slides.
I engage with my students a lot and stress all questions being asked (even stupid ones). If a student were to ask me "What about Linkedin?" I would then use the board to as a visual to what I'm saying.

I'm not experienced enough to teach a class without preparing something to keep me from rambling for 3 hours + scrawling gibberish all over the board.

Using slides with the board is my prefer method as I can have the slides as a reference while elaborating on a free-form way by using visuals. If your classroom has a lectern you may want to keep your own outline there as an additional point of reference.

I am uncomfortable spending so much time facing away from my students.

Completely understandable and I think this comes with practice. When I was taking courses I had instructors that would always face the board when writing but I also had instructors (I hope I can put myself in this category) that would write on the board, look back at students, write again. You can keep track of the students body languages with occasional head checks so you know you're not getting ahead of yourself. I think this is a matter of trial and error.

It's hard be effective at writing and delivery at the same time.

This is also something that takes practice. If you have the time, try to take a public speaking course that relies on speakers using visuals. This can give you a setting for constructive feedback where you may be showing visual images and writing words or phrases on a board. I did this while I was still a student and It's help me a lot throughout my career.

I'm concerned about legibility. This is partly addressed in Techniques for good board handwriting, but I'm also concerned about diagrams and drawings (I'm not much of an artist).

I, personally, have terrible handwriting (maybe because I'm left handed??) and when something is illegible it's rare for not a single student to mention it as there's almost always an avid note taker within the class. Drawings can be tricky if they're more complicated diagrams but try to simplify things. If you need to draw a car for an example just make a rectangle and put a label inside the rectangle if you really need to. Unless you're an art teacher, I think students will understand your drawing ability.

I keep reverting back to slides

If you already have the slides, you can use them as notes, without actually showing them to the audience.
When I started teaching, I prepared slides carefully, and it was very good as it helped me to thing everything over in detail, realize possible corner cases etc. But then I realized I didn't like presenting using slides that much and that using a board would be better. So in the next years, I just kept the slides as a private reference for me, explaining everything on the board.
Also: You can't completely avoid making mistakes - every teacher makes mistakes, a good teacher learns from them. It will happen that you'll say something wrong, or that you'll stay in front of your audience and won't be able to remember something. Just take with humor, learn from it and go on.

If you have any ability to influence the structure of classes or pick a class to offer, I cannot more highly recommend the instructional value of teaching the same course in two sections - even if it's just a 'lab' or 'discussion' session that you get to split into two.
My very first experience with teaching was like this, and there is a huge benefit in being able to "do it again" very soon after the first time you did something. I think it's better than having a year of experience, but all compressed into a single semester.
The first time you are teaching something, you really don't know what all is going to come up. What will student's find difficult or confusing? What joke will students think is kind of funny? What sort of questions will be asked? How much space do you need to cover a certain explanation, and can you skip some steps - or will those steps be what students want explained?
When you have never done it before, your instructional quality is based on improvisational skill as much as preparation. Sure, being prepared is important, but I found that beyond a not too hard to reach point I wasn't really preparing for a given class anymore, so much as just increasing the amount of material I wasn't going to be able to cover in the time allotted anyway. I was just too far from the point when the material was new and mysterious, as it was to be for most of my students, to know what questions to prepare explanations for.
However, when you get two sections you get a wonderful chance at a do-over - and you don't have to wait until next semester! You can test your preparation on the first section, and make improvements and some little extra preparation for the next section and see how that goes.
More often than not, I found that the questions in the first section would, over 90% of the time, be questions that people had in the second section. Sometimes I pre-empted the questions by revising how I explained the material, and sometimes I just waited for the question to be asked, exclaimed what an excellent question that was, and then was able to launch into a highly compacted and effective explanation of what had before left me sweating to explain in an understandable way. Equally enjoyably I got to improve the delivery of some of my jokes, which sometime resulted in a nice laugh - and others in a reminder that my sense of humor is not a human universal.
In the end I realized how the great teachers in my past had been able to answer some tricky questions so deftly and with such ease - I wasn't the first to have asked them! Teaching looked easy when they did it, because each time they did it they sought to get a little better at it.
If this multi-section option isn't available to you, I've known a few instructors that would actually ghost-teach the class to an empty room, writing out everything on the board they planned so they would now how to physically organize their thoughts, give themselves proper room and spacing, and so on. They would even take time to step back at a point and attempt to imagine what sort of question might come up at a given stage and write it down, even explaining it to the imaginary person on the board.
It beats going in cold, and they seemed to do a remarkably good job on material they'd never taught before (or taught only once).
TLDR; practice, practice, practice.


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Is it appropriate to use active and passive voice together in abstract?
I am writing an abstract for my manuscript (with my mentor), and the abstract includes active and passive voices together, as below:

In the present paper, we have proved [...] by using [...]. Some new results have also been obtained.

Is it a mistake to use passive and active voice together in the abstract?

I don't think there is any inherent problem with mixing active and passive voice.  However I would offer the following suggestions:

The passive voice is certainly unnecessary here, so you might as well avoid it.  You could simply say "We have also obtained some new results."
I think most people prefer to write abstracts in the present tense.  "In the present paper, we prove theorems... We also obtain some new results."
The last sentence "obtained some new results" is so vague that it doesn't tell the reader anything.  Either add more details ("We also obtain some new results on the reticulation of splines") or just omit the sentence altogether.

thanks for reply, ı took this abstract only to show the usage of passive and active together. this is not the abstract ı will write. I only wonder is it true to use passive and active together. And ı understand from your  saying that  it doesnt make an inheretnt problem.

My native language is not english, ı dont know it is true or not but when ı use passive and active together in a paragraph like this, ı feel the paragraph seem to be more diverse. Is it true?

@guest In some sense, perhaps the writing style is more varied, but it's probably not a sense you should strive for. Say things in the way that makes them clearest.

@guest: Variety in writing style is desirable when writing fiction or popular works, but for technical writing it isn't necessarily beneficial.  It is much more important to be clear, precise, and concise, even at the expense of variety.

I understand what you say. Since my native language is not english sometimes ı focus on the writing and the style of abstract more than it deserve. As you say the important thing is to convey the idea in clearest way rather than stylist way. Thanks for your helps...

I would make the text impersonal, it looks more professional that way: '...In the present paper, theorems dealing with matrix summability factors by using quasi β-power increasing sequences are established...'

I think your writing is great.  Relax about the active/passive thing and keep writing!  - - -  Note, if you were mixing active and passive in one sentence, that would probably be a problem.

I disagree with Chu's comment about making the text impersonal. If the natural way to write something happens to be impersonal, that's fine, but if the natural way involves "we did xxx", that's also fine. I wouldn't devote any effort to impersonalizing my writing.

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Are there any online platforms where I can discuss my research idea with experts?
I have several research ideas (oncology and virology) that I want to discuss with professors/experts, so I am looking for an online platform where the ideas can be shared and discussed. However, other than Researchgate (which I cannot use, because I don't have an institutional email), I can't seem to find any other suitable places on the web. Biology Stack Exchange didn't work well for me, because the mods there say that my question is mainly based on "opinion."
So......in short,any good forums or platforms where I can discuss my ideas with the experts?

I flagged this as being a shopping question, but besides that I'm not sure the question is answerable without knowing why you want to discuss them. Are they ideas you think people ought to be pursuing? Are they ideas for future research that you'd like to pursue? Do you just want feedback on whether they're interesting?

Researchgate (which I cannot use, because I don't have an institutional email), I am an independent researcher and I do have an account. I don't know what you're talking about. Short answer to your question: Go to school to receive formal training in Biology. Biology is not something you can study at home. You need to work in labs. Of course, you can build your own lab if you are a billionare.

since you are an independent researcher, this question is a bit out of place here in academia. You might want to try one of the Area51 proposals

@brucellino not at all - questions about research outside of academia are also on topic here. We have an existing tag, [tag:independent-researcher] for questions about researchers with no affiliation. We also accept questions from researchers in [tag:industry] or [tag:government-institutes]

Thanks for setting me straight! I actually came to that realisation reading about the open science proposed site.

You could use Guaana to engage experts
Another good idea would be to use Reddit, where depending on your research field you may or may not find an engaged scientific community. However, research is not simply "ask question, get answer". You need to understand the field and depending on the research field, you may find that it is near impossible to even communicate with researchers in a field, if you yourself are not part of it. If you're really serious about your ideas, I would look  for a biotech consultancy and hire them to develop the ideas.

You can use Quora to ask your questions and also discuss with experts on your interested field.
This site needs registration with your email (institution based is not required).

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How to report on an academically required internship with a bad supervisor relationship
I am a few days from completion of an industrial internship that is required for my Masters degree.  I have had a bad experience with the supervisor of this internship, who has insulted me several times during my internship period. He is mean, he gets angry very easily, he is bad-tempered and most importantly he is ignorant: he never knew what I must do as a trainee, it is me who proposes the tasks to him. Finally, now that I have finished the main task of my internship, he says it is useless.
Completing the internship and the degree involves reporting on my internship to an academic jury.  Given this bad experience, how should I handle my report?
In particular:

I do not want to give an acknowledgement to my field supervisor in my report: is this a bad thing to do? I mean, will the jury ask me why I did not write an acknowledgement?
If the jury asks about my evaluation of the company where I did the internship, should I be honest in telling them what happened, or should I lie and tell them everything was fine?

Is the advisor in question affiliated to your university, member of said jury or in any other way relevant to your future career (assuming that you do not intend to work for that company)? Also, what relevance does this internship have to your degree (from the tags, I am assuming that it sort-of is your thesis)?

@Wrzlprmft no, he is the director of a given company in which I have done my internship)

This sounds like a golden opportunity to learn about real life and office politics...

The only thing that made this question go was sentences based on facts, not personal views or badmouthing and of course an dilemma at the end. Keep this in mind in front of jury too.

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about an internship, which is a work-related topic. I suggest moving it to the workplace.se.

@RoboKaren: This is about an internship required to achieve an academic degree and mainly about reporting about this internship in an academic context. I thus consider it to be much more on topic here than it would be on Workplace.

I have generalized and clarified this question, and am voting to reopen.

If the jury asks about my appreciation of the company where I did the internship: should I be honest in telling them what happened and that my advisor is too incompetent? Or should I lie and tell them everything was fine?

You should do the same as in any other case when a professional relationship goes wrong. You need to:

Focus on the facts. "The project was not going smoothly" is a fact. "We had communication issues, so I ended up delivering not what they wanted"  is also ok. "The project was going badly because the advisor is incompetent" is you trying to assign blame. Stay clear of that. You do not need to lie to the committee and pretend that all was great, but try to refrain from presenting your own interpretation of the events. It is understandable that you will want to make sure that the committee understands that the issues were due to no fault of yours, but by badmouthing your advisor (no matter how warranted) you are likely to reach the opposite.
Take the high road. If it is customary that students write an acknowledgement to their advisors, write a short, polite acknowledgement thanking him to allow you to  work in his team, if you can thank him for nothing else. Rocking the boat over something so minor seems unwise.
Whatever you do, stay professional. Acting out of anger and a lust to "get back" on your advisor for his insults will backfire on you.

Important Edit:
Based on your follow-up information:
(retracted - some racist comments as well as statements about unduly long work hours)
The fourth, maybe even more important point is:
If something really bad went on (like in your case), find out what the correct official action to take is. File an official complaint with your university, or even talk to a lawyer and have him look into filing a law suite (racist comments in the workspace are certainly grounds for a civil law suite where I live). Don't take a placebo action that does not hurt and does not help, such as not including him in your acknowledgements.
The other 3 points stay in place - even if something terrible went down, you need to stay professional and you need to focus on the facts, in your official reports as much as when you talk to your jury about the incident(s).

thank you for your answer that I find wise. However, i still do not want to thank him because he insulted me several times (he even said I am a terrorist because I am Algerian, while I am atheist and I fled from Algeria because of Islam -well, I am not trying to make this website a political or religious one, so I prefer to stop here-). He never told me anything respectfully. He always spoke to me in a loud and agressive voice. I had to bear all this because of some personal issues I do not want to list here.

He also made me working a minimum of 13 hours per day (from 07h:00 AM until 20h:30 everyday, and some days he forced me to work until 23h:00, without even being able to eat in the middle of the day). He always told me that he is French and I am Algerian -while he came to France on 2008 from Morocco and got French citizenship just recently-. He insulted one French trainee so that student never came back to the company unlike me.

@tearsmile Racist comments and forcing you to work unpaid overtime? The correct reaction is not to leave him out of your acknowledgements. The correct reaction is to file an official complaint.

@tearsmile: Note that the information from these comments is probably detailed enough to identify you to your advisor, should he read this, or someone else who knows both of you.  If you really want to stay anonymous you may want to delete those comments (and xLeitix should maybe delete them from his answer as well).

@NateEldredge agree

Very good points: you should stay professional, and seriously check what are your official options. Whatever we advice, the internal rules of university, the specific terms of internship etc will decide this. Racist comments and unreasonable work conditions are unacceptable in most countries and you can use them well. Vague claims about being disrespectful or unsporting with you is a much weaker argument against him.

Thank you very much for all the answers. Yes, surely after i do the presentation i will see what I can do in terms of law.

Be a better person than him. Write the acknowledgement.
I would think that telling your jury that he was a very hard man to work for is fine, but I wouldn't call him incompetent to people who are effectively his peers. I definitely wouldn't recommend him other students.

Won't point no. 1 encourage being bad-tempered even further? It means that when someone lands up on the other side of the table, people have got no choice, but to put up with their nonsense. And you are still forced to put up a smile on your face and say nice things (read, lies) about them?

@New_new_newbie The two most important rules for any kind of professional conflicts are (1) pick your fight, and (2) keep it professional. You don't want to start a fight over something not worth fighting about (read: acknowledgements in a document nobody reads), and you never, never want to get personal (no, not even if the other side does it first).

@New_new_newbie If something important goes avry (racist comments and forcing you to work unpaid overtime, as the OP reports, qualify), then react accordingly - typically this means filing an official report, if you have evidence even get a lawyer and have him look into filing a law suite. Don't do a placebo action like leaving him out of your acknowledgements (or, worse, start a screaming duel with him in office).

@xLeitix: On the other hand, acknowledging might against you by a judge or whoever has to decide about this.

Even if writing an acknowledgement is the norm in such a kind of report, acknowledgements remain a kind of gesture, which should have no impact on a professional evaluation. If such gestures have to be performed for their own sake, they become pointless and worthless¹: If literally everybody is being acknowledged, being acknowledged isn’t worth anything. Thus for acknowledgement having any point, there must be at least a small chance of, e.g., an advisor not being acknowledged, if this person really does not deserve it.
So, if your advisor did everything to be not worthy of any acknowledgement (as it sounds like), the only reason to acknowledge him would be that he still has impact on your grade or career². Assuming that this isn’t the case, the jury should not ask you about this missing acknowledgement, as your relationship to your supervisor should (idealistically) not play into your evaluation. (I will come back to this in a moment.)
As for your defense (or interview with the jury), I second the already given advice: Avoid appearing to place blame on your supervisor, but focus on the facts instead. Depending on what the mode of the defense is, e.g., if you are mainly asked questions and do not have to freely report on big chunks, you might not even need to address the issues yourself, unless asked. If you are however asked, e.g., why you made some decision on your project and it was due to your advisor commanding this decision, clearly say so. This also applies to the acknowledgement: If you are asked why you did not include one, it is the jury who brings up this topic and not you, and you can thruthfully say that you felt that there was nothing to acknowledge – but never bring on this topic on your own.
Another thing that you should be prepared for: If your internship was sufficiently long, the jury might hold the opinion that it was your responsibility to report severe problems to the university, such that it could assign you a new internship position or similar. Whether this opinion is justified depends on several factors, such as how much time this would have wasted and how high the risk would have been that such a complaint would have backfired at you and so on.
Also, if it’s not too late for this: Talk to your student body. They better know your specific situation than we do and might have experience with similar cases. Also, they have the means to drastically reduce the chances that this company ever gets an intern from your university again (I assume that they keep a list of good and bad companies for such internships).
Finally, talk to the jury (or another appropriate person), after everything is over. They also will have means to drastically reduce the chances that this company ever gets an intern from your university again.

¹ And you might enter some euphemism treadmill which ends up in a special acknowledgement language which has nothing to do with actual language anymore, as it is the case for employment reference letters in my country.
² Be aware that there might be not-so-obvious ties between your advisor and members of your university.

+1 However, I don't think it is actually necessary to talk to the jury afterwards. If they care, they will see that things did not go well and react accordingly. If they don't care, talking to them afterwards won't change that.

@xLeitix: They will hopefully see that things did not go well, but unless it is directly addressed, they cannot possibly sense insults and the whole extent of what went wrong.

+1 for the footnote about ties between the university and the internship company. Did the university assign you to the company or did you find the internship yourself?


text:
Link which explains how to format a letter to Nature
I need to write a letter to Nature and a friend of mine said that Nature wants the Author to follow a very precise format.
He said that the explanation of the structure of the format is an example of a letter in which: there were different colours for the different sections, it also explained what to write in each section and which words use/don't use etc
Does anybody know the link where I can find such information?

Your question seems unclear to me. Do you want to submit a paper to the journal? Or just write a letter and ask them something?!

@EnthusiasticStudent: Nature has a section for "letters" which are really very short papers, or at least research announcements.  I assume that's what's meant here.

Such information is invariably posted on a journal's website, and Nature is no exception. Go to Nature's current issue website, click "For Authors" and "Manuscript Formatting Guide". Under "Letters" there is an "annotated example" which looks like what you are describing.

It looks to me like the colorization isn't required. It's just there to illuminate the required sections in the summary paragraph.

Yes, it's true!


text:
Evaluation criteria for 3-minute teaching demonstration over Skype?
I have been asked to participate in a Skype interview for an academic position in a STEM field.  One focus of the institution is innovative and non-traditional teaching methods.  This is the first interview/contact after submitting my application package.
The Skype interview is scheduled to last 15 minutes.  As part of this interview I have been asked to teach something I am "passionate about" in only three minutes.
I am struggling with what the evaluation criteria might be for such a short demonstration.  If I were evaluating a short teaching demonstration, these are the things that I would be looking for:

enthusaisiam
the ability to communicate in the language of instruction
the ability to engage students
use of appropriate visuals
including an interactive or active learning segment
checking up on the audience to see if they are understanding the lesson

However, I don't see how I could authentically include the last three items in a 3-minute lesson.
Questions:

What do you think would be the search committee's evaluation criteria?
Should I try to incorporate active learning and visuals?
Is it appropriate to ask what the evaluation criteria are?

wow, that is a crazy dislikable interview process. My sympathies. In my experience "weird/unwinnable" interview processes like this exist to expose negative qualities. That way committee members that don't like you have something concrete to criticize you on. The winning candidate will also mistep here but the committee will overlook it. Try your best, but also put effort into building consensus and selling yrself not just to department chair but to each of the faculty individually.

The easiest thing is to ask what  the criteria of evaluation is. Given the small time they probably want to see if can you actually teach something in three minutes. This take incredible content and communicative mastery to find a topic that fits within this time limit and can be explained. The typical expert knows too much to share with such direct and concise simplicity.
In relation to visuals, I would have one as a maximum that I might explain to my audience. I would  not try to do any active learning because just explaining what to do will take up all the time and there will not be any time to discuss whatever you had them do.
You  could consider asking a question or two during the demo. However the question should not be open ended because of the time constraints. You want to use the questions to lead to the goal of the lesson.


text:
Journal Club - How to encourage students to ask questions to the presenters (peers)
We are running a journal club online due to the current COVID-19 situation. The students have to pick a paper and present it online to teachers and their peers. However, I would like to make the experience a bit more formative for the students. The main thing that is missing is an interaction among the presenters and the other students.
Do you have any advice on how to get the students to ask questions to their peers?
EDIT: This Journal club is part of a master's degree course and there is an evaluation of the journal club. However, we only evaluate the students for their presentations.
I found this question that is somehow related but not exactly what I am looking for.
Thanks!

Is this a part of a course, is there any evaluation?

Yeah, it is part of a master's degree course and there is an evaluation. I edited my question.

Do all of the students read all of the papers? Or, is there such a requirement at least?

They are encouraged to read at least the abstract/conclusions of all the papers. Not sure if they really do (probably not)

I have taken part in two journal club formats that work well for maximizing student involvement, although whether they would lend themsevles well to assesement, I don't know.
In both cases the idea is to force everyone to read the paper, and engage with it, and minimise the workload for person "presenting". In neither case is there any powerpoints, or pre-rehearsed talking. The presentor is more of a facilitator.
Structure one: Figures presented at random
In this structure the person who picked the paper gives a brief introduction to the paper and why they picked it (no more than say 5 minutes). They then present the first figure.
Subsequent figures/tables are then presented by people selected at random (we roll a die). When I say "presented" I often mean "leads a discussion" - as there might be things in the figure the person chosen doesn't understand, has questions about, particularly since they didn't pcik the paper.
I find that this forces everyone to read and engage with the paper, but it doesn't force the discussion to go beyond what is in the figures.
Structure two: Everyone must ask a question
Again the paper selector introduces the paper briefly. We then go round the room and everyone has to say one thing they liked about the paper, one thing they didn't like, and one question/discussion point. The paper selector writes down the discussion points/questions, prioritises them and the leads a discussion with this as the agenda.

One way to get students to do things that you want them to do and are valuable when they do them is to actually require it. Simple concept.
Since the papers are supposed to be read in advance, but few people do, perhaps, you want to use a bit of stick to goad them on.
One simple solution to both problems is as follows. Suppose that there are five papers to be reviewed in a session. One individual is responsible for presenting each of the five, of course. But require that all the students, prior to the session submit at least one question to you directly on at least three of the five papers.
It might be too much to require questions on all the papers, so I suggest only some, rather than all.
You can use the submitted questions in various ways. You could ask them yourself during the session, naming the originator or not. You could ask the originator to ask their question. You could also present those questions to the speaker a bit before the session.
Getting the questions directly and in advance gives you an opportunity to comment back on the quality of the questions. This could be either privately or in a session in which you generally discuss the sorts of questions that are most valuable to ask about papers in your field.
One possible flaw is that some of the papers don't get covered with the above scheme. In that case you could assign, say, one of the three papers to each student. They then need to provide at least one question for that paper and at least one for the remaining two.
I've assumed that someone is in charge of the session, such as a professor. If that is not the case, one participant can be chosen to "lead" each session and manage the questions. Leadership can rotate. And for a volunteer group, make this part of the charter that people agree to when they join.
I don't know how this would scale. I've assumed a pretty small group. But I think such clubs are going to be small scale in any case.

This might not be what you're thinking of, but make the papers presented comprehensible. If people can understand what the authors did, why the results matter, and how to place those results in the context of the rest of the field, it would be hugely conducive to asking questions. On the other hand if people don't understand a word, one won't even be able to form a question in the first place.
Example: this Nature paper. This is the abstract:

All stellar-mass black holes have hitherto been identified by X-rays emitted from gas that is accreting onto the black hole from a companion star. These systems are all binaries with a black-hole mass that is less than 30 times that of the Sun. Theory predicts, however, that X-ray-emitting systems form a minority of the total population of star–black-hole binaries. When the black hole is not accreting gas, it can be found through radial-velocity measurements of the motion of the companion star. Here we report radial-velocity measurements taken over two years of the Galactic B-type star, LB-1. We find that the motion of the B star and an accompanying Hα emission line require the presence of a dark companion with a mass of 68 +11/−13 solar masses, which can only be a black hole. The long orbital period of 78.9 days shows that this is a wide binary system. Gravitational-wave experiments have detected black holes of similar mass, but the formation of such massive ones in a high-metallicity environment would be extremely challenging within current stellar evolution theories.

As far as scientific papers go, this one is pretty understandable to the non-expert. Nonetheless, if you're not an astrophysicist, much of this will be Greek. It says the black hole was found "through radial-velocity measurements of the motion of the companion star". Do you know how this measurement works? If not, the rest of the abstract quickly becomes confusing. Does it matter that the companion star is a B-star? What is a B-star anyway, or "Hα emission line"?
If the presenter neglects to clarify these question and instead spends time on sentences like (from the methods section of the paper) "We performed a rotational and instrumental convolution of the original theoretical libraries to v sin i = 10 km/s and FWHM = 0.1 A" then audience comprehension is basically done for and they might as well look at their mobile phones for the rest of the presentation.
Instead try something like, "The authors find the black hole by using radial-velocity measurements. In case people don't know what this is, this is how it works ...". Once everyone understands how the measurement works, then one can go into more details. The exact "rotational and instrumental convolution of the original theoretical libraries" is still only going to be interesting to the expert, but one can emphasize the conclusions more interesting to a general audience: that black holes of this mass are not expected to form in a high-metallicity environment (the word "metallicity" might also need explanation), and their presence breaks current stellar evolution theories. One can then talk about how it breaks stellar evolution, explore some alternative explanations, and so on. In fact, based only on what I've written, you might already be able to think of a couple: 1) lots of small black holes merging, or 2) black hole formed in a "low-metallicity environment" (whatever that is) and moved to where we found it. Why these explanations don't work then become legitimate questions you can ask during Q&A.

My graduate courses had a "participation" mark. The trick was that it was vague; it required that students participate in discussions, but there was no concrete criteria. Thus the students set the relative bar. I.e. if one student asks three questions, but most asked none then a few will try to be middle ground and ask at least one question. Really the grade was a free 10% for everyone unless you were defiantly against speaking in class so it was not a stressful situation.

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text:
My advisor does not provide any solutions and wants me to work alone
So, my advisor works in a group style, meaning we have these weekly meetings, where all of his PhD students and RAs are present. We plan the work ahead and set aims, but these aims are always very general and non-specific.
For example, it is always like "you must publish in the X journal something about improving the 4G network, because that's where the money is". He usually asks for publication planning without having done the work first.
We rarely have 1-1 meetings and even when we do, he does not provide any guidance, he just sets aims and I have to work alone to achieve them (no one else in our group works on the same topic).
This gets even worse by the facts that:

I do not enjoy the topic that much. Long story short, I was assigned this topic after changing supervisors for logistics reason (Worth mentioning the relation with my previous supervisor was excellent, but unfortunately as I said, I cannot go back to him due to logistics).
More importantly, he is very cautious with sharing his research and does not like to work with people outside the group.

As an example of the 2nd, I had asked him if I could write a paper with another researcher outside our group. He said yes, but after a month of work and 2 days before the deadline, he changed his mind and said I should remove the other person's work and name from the paper, otherwise we are not going to submit.
I am 2.5 years into the PhD out of a 5-year long program, so half-way through.  However, I cannot work alone on a topic I do not enjoy, with a person I do not get along with. What should I do? Should I change supervisor again, keep working alone or quit maybe with a MRes?
Some people I have talked with say this situation is common and normal.

Sorry to hear that you are having some conflict in this - I don't envy your situation. Have you made a pros and cons list of each of your options (stay, change supervisor, or take a MRes instead of a PhD)? If not, I'd recommend it as it can help with the decision. It might also be useful to consider what you can do to make the PhD more bearable. This could include things like finding ways to reframe negative thoughts, aspects, or encounters in a more positive light

@HoboSci The pros/cons list only exists in my mind for now, but it is a good idea to put it down on a paper, thanks. I have tried seeing the positive side too, (for example, my advisor is happy with me attending trainings, workshops etc.). The position I am in now, I am just trying to see what the least bad approach could be. Quitting without anything is also on the table and quite tempting, but I do not want to have wasted 2.5 years.

I do not enjoy the topic that much. — Then don't do it.  It's your PhD.  You have to hunt it down and kill it. — Should I change supervisor again — In my opinion, yes.  But more importantly, you need to understand any new potential advisor's research expectations and working style before you agree to let them advise you.

@JeffE The only thing I am worried about is that in case I change advisor, I will have lost another year of work (I changed advisor for the first time after the first 1.5 year), having left only 2.5 years to publish, write-up and finish.

@lone_researcher: It’s been eight years. How did things end up working out for you?

Some people I have talked with say this situation is common and normal

Absolutely!
It is going to be a very hard process to change how your advisor work! Most of the time, you won't be able to! So, you will need to learn to adapt. You need to consider the following;

This is not your first PhD! You changed advisors before.
You are half-way through your current PhD (only you knows how many years you wasted or what's your current family situation).
You need to graduate!

So, my advice is to follow your adviosr and be flexible.
When I first started my PhD, a new PhD student joined my grouped and have similar issues like yours. He changed advisors, schools and wanted to continue publishing with another researcher (his friend who have finished his PhD from a previous school where he joined before). The bottom line is, my advisor tolerated him for sometime but then gave him two options;

If he [the student] continues the "drama", he can leave. If fact, he told him that he knows a professor in another school that might be willing to take him.
Follow the process and get his degree!

To me, that student was very brilliant, had very unique way of thinking and solving for solutions! But, it was very clear that he needed to do everything on his own (and way)! Many advisors do not like that (especially, well-known ones).
I get that sometimes you can get a project that you do not like! So, what!! Do you think that you ganna be always working on projects that you like! I doubt that! At this level, you are a researcher (try to be a professional one). Think of it this way,  if you are a surgeon, you operate on people! You can not say, "No, I do not want to operate on this guy because I do not like him" This may sound harsh, but in a way, is true!

But then what is the point of doing the PhD in the first place? A surgeon has chosen to become one, no one forced him to do that. He does it because he likes it (or at least this is how it is supposed to be). If he doesn't like a person, it's just a single case, not 2.5 more years of his life! I do not believe your analogy is accurate.

If you get a PhD in n mechanical engineering (and your dissertation was on something like composites in aerodynamics), that doesn't mean that you can ONLY work on composites in aerodynamic for the rest of your life!

I cannot follow your thinking. I agree with what you say in your comment, but how is this relevant to my comment? From your answer, you seem to believe a PhD is just a project, whereas I think you have to love what you do for research. As I obviously don't, let's go back to my main question: What should I change? Nothing?

A PhD is a project if you feel it is that way! I did not say that! My comment simply describe that a simpler way of thinking in which a PhD CAN be a mean to a higher end! If you really do not like what you are doing, the simple answer is to stop do what you are doing and quit! I doubt that you waited 2.5 years without knowing this answer. I can only comment on what you have presented in the few lines that make up your question. To me, learning to adapt and actually get the degree is much rewarding than quitting.

I cannot see any logical reason as to why you can't work with people outside of the group and publish papers. In fact, building professional relations should be one of the objectives of the PhD. However, the situation is far worse in the industry. You can't say something like "I don't like this project". Learning to adapt could be the option. Also, working with other members of the group should bypass loneliness.

It differs from one field to another and one advisor to another @MikeyMike. For instance, when you are fully funded by your advisor, s/he tend not to "like" when you work with other who are from outside the group. Think of it this way, if your advisor has gotten a fund and used it to do an experiment, why would he share the outcome with somebody else who did not participate in bringing the fund! In the same manner, if he is fully sponsoring your and paying your tuition and salary, why would he wants you to work with others (and "waste your time not working for his projects!").

Although one can argue that a student can collaborate on his free time! Or can use that to start networking! Most of the advisors I know and have students that match that description, tend not to agree with you! Some might! However, this is very common in cases of international students doing PhDs in engineering in the US.

@ The Fire Guy I see your point. However, I don't think the supervisor should limit so much the students to work only on his projects.

@MikeyMike I totally agree with you! and wish this way of thinking changes one day.

Just for clarification, the person outside the group helped me, not the other way round. So the publication is on my work, basically an improvement of what I would publish without the extra person's help. My advisor's reasoning was that the new person can claim rights on the IP of the paper and he does not know him that well. @MikeyMike the others in my group do quite different things. I surely can work with them, but it is not going to be on my main project.

You can't say something like "I don't like this project". — What?! Of course you can!!  What you can't necessarily say is "I don't like this project, but I insist on working with this advisor."

when you are fully funded by your advisor, s/he tend not to "like" when you work with other who are from outside the group — Unless I'm your advisor.

@JeffE I totally agree with your views. But TheFireGuy has a point, that it is hard to change how an advisor works. Should I try and pursuit this or will it be pointless?

"What should I do" is hard question, but you must answer it yourself :) If you find the cooperation hard then it might be a good reason to change.
Usually you should learn (at least on a general level) the form of cooperation with an advisor before you start to work with him. You do that by asking his/her students about this and asking him/her directly. If you do that, there should be little surprise on how things work when you decide to join the team.
Regarding the "not enjoyable topic" problem, one of the aims of PhD studies is to prove that you are capable of doing research on your own, so I'm not surprised that you are not given any concrete solutions and specific guidance.
On the other hand, you are right to expect some help in problems you're facing and at least a fruitful discussion about the topic, especially if your advisor is the co-author of papers you produce.
Working on a topic completely unrelated to your PhD research might be alarming, and a reason to quit - but then again, this is still something that helps you to learn how to conduct research on your own and write papers.
During my PhD studies I was also participating in projects/papers that weren't directly within my field of interest - but I don't consider them a waste of time. On the contrary - they helped me to improve my general research skills. And this was really helpful in conducting research for my thesis.

"Usually you should learn (at least on a general level) the form of cooperation with an advisor before you start to work with him. You do that by asking his/her students about this and asking him/her directly." I did that, and I was happy with the previous advisor. But I was kinda forced to switch and work with the new one. I am well aware that I have to work on my own, but in my case, it is to that extend that I cannot see any benefit from having an advisor. He has never given me any feedback apart from "you need to focus on simulation software" or "big data is the next big thing".

@lone_researcher I get that -> see first paragraph :) Also, I understand you were forced to end the cooperation with your previous advisor - but was your current advisor really the only possible choice? I assume not if you're considering a change - hence the second paragraph.

No, you are actually right, he was not my only choice. But unfortunately, it was also not me the one making the choice! I was placed to work under him by my department, which seemed to be working initially, but the problems started appearing as time went by. Regarding changing again, I am a bit reluctant if this will benefit me and allow enough time for me to publish, write-up and graduate, as I repeat above.

@lone_researcher Yes, very tough decision. But only you can evaluate whether it is possible to graduate with this advisor in a sensible time-frame? Consider how many PhDs this advisor has already "produced" - if the number is, let's say few every few years, or at least more than 10, then you can assume that he knows what to do, to get his PhD students successfully finish their theses.

Although he is not a big name in his field and he does not produce world-leading research, he has a few good links in the industry and for sure knows what a PhD student needs to pass his viva. But that is not enough: you might get to work with an expert, but what if his attitude is not something you can withstand?

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text:
The steps for applying to PostDoc positions
I have a PhD in computer science and recently I would like to get a postdoc with a respectful professor in my field to update my research works, or after that working in more applied domains in companies.
I don't know the steps of applying for postdoc positions specially in USA and Canada.
I'm a non-native English speaker. Furthermore, I have several important concerns as,

How long does it take the process of applying?

the range of scholarship for PostDoc job

The general requirement for postdoc applicant (number of publications, teaching experience and etc)

The possibility of research working before the acceptance
I'd like to see the comments based on these concerns and also to know the real experiences of PostDoc applying.

Although I like this question, isn't this too broad and has too many good answers?

The bullets that you have added to refine this question are helpful, but it is still too broad.  It would be better if you can focus on one bullet in this question, and ask the others as separate questions.  I believe that some of your questions have also been answered elsewhere on the site, if you search for them.

You can also try to approach the best professors in your field and ask them to visit their lab (and most probably they will ask you to make a talk where you present your PhD). It is a hasle to prepare a talk in a prestigious lab, but then you let yourself known, and when a position comes up there you might learn about it first and who knows.
I would try to contact people I would really want to work with and see what comes next.


text:
How to help reduce students' anxiety in an oral exam?
Oral exams can have various pedagogical benefits in certain circumstances, but can also make some students feel anxious. After watching several students nervous-sweat their way through such an exam, I'm looking for ways to help them.
How can an instructor help students relax and feel less nervous during an oral exam?

My stats teacher used to have a bottle of Schnapps on his shelf for that purpose, but I guess this is not what you are looking for.

@xLeitix Is the schnapps supposed to be for the student or the instructor in that situation? Or both? ;)

Originally the student, but the prof apparently also needed calming down on occasion.

I've realised after writing my answer that I may have interpreted your question a bit too broadly. Can you clarify: do you mean measures that you can take to prepare your students, or measures that the examiner can take during the exam, or both?

@xLeitix you jest, and yet I do recommend to my students if age a single drink before their orals for my beginner language classes. It's just enough to keep them from worrying about producing 100% grammatical sentences and instead just talking. (I teach foreign languages)

Just for the record, offering alcohol to students to calm them down could be tricky in countries with strict alcohol policies. I am fairly certain that it would make headlines on the local newspapers in Sweden, if a professor were offering shots prior to an exam, maybe even national media if the institution is of a high status.

Probably the best way would be to divide the exam into a written part and an oral one.

Not sure this warrants an actual answer, but making them take practice oral exams (e.g. against their peers or TAs) is likely extremely effective, from experience and expert advice on public speaking.

@user2390246 I am interested in both measures that the examiner can take during the exam, and measures that the instructor can take before the exam. (Around here, the instructor and examiner for a course is typically the same person, so I only referred to the "instructor" in the question; I guess that was the source of the confusion.) Thanks.

Hold an oral exam every two weeks - make them shorter and do it more often.  If you want them to get better at it, they have to practice.  The more they do it, the more comfortable they will be.  It's the same with anything.  Don't worry about what you're doing or not doing - just let them struggle with it, but give them more opportunities to do so.

Kitten videos, perhaps?

@Mikey Mike, I agree. Splitting the exam into two parts of equal weighting would alllow even the most anxious of students to pass, if they perform well in written exams.

Have a jug of water on the table, so you can offer a cup of water. This way, the student can remedy a dry throat from talking and nerves, and gives them excuse to take a small break if going gets tough.

Is oral exam really necessary?

I'm fascinated that you actually care. I come from a country where essentially  all (95+%) university level exams were oral (as were many high school level exams) and the general approach of the teachers was if you know what you're talking about why would you be anxious and if not you should have studied more. At the same time I believe an oral exam is the only type of exam that actually allows an examiner to properly find out if a student knows what they should and even for anxious students a good examiner can get a mostly precise read.

The following assorted suggestions stem from standard procedure at my department, which has a long-lasting experience with oral exams, and positive experiences reported by fellow students suffering from anxiety.

The exam begins with the student giving a brief elaboration of a topic of their choice (within the subject of the course). They can talk uninterrupted for a while, and then the exam gradually shifts to question-and-answer mode on this subtopic, probing whether the student actually understood what they are talking about. This has several advantages:

The student knows how the exam will begin and they can prepare the first few minutes. This avoids anxiety due to uncertainty.
The student is not dropped into interactive mode instantly, but gradually.
The student knows which topic will be examined first, they can prepare for this, which boosts confidence.
Not related to the question, it allows the examiner to estimate how well the student can structure the chosen topic (which usually goes hand in hand with understanding) and put it into the context of the course’s subject.

Do not ask questions that require long and elaborate answers, but go step-by-step, guiding the student if necessary, but only if necessary (so they have room to shine). For example, do not ask:

Please tell me about [central result of course].

Instead ask a chain of questions, allowing the student to answer each of them, and adapt them depending on mistakes the student makes or similar. For example, the questions could be as follows:

What does [central result of course] state?
Why is it so important?
Under which conditions does [central result] hold?
Why is [some necessary condition] necessary?
Why does [some sufficient condition] suffice for [central result]?

In a typical case, these questions are raising in difficulty with the first questions being something that every serious candidate should be able to answer without much thinking. This allows the student to get some confidence and get tuned to the topic before the questions become more difficult. Also, this avoids the impression of time pressure and the student knowing that they have to get to that bit which they are not confident about, even if they can score by explaining a lot of basics before that.
If you ask questions where the student shall apply their knowledge and which require some thinking time, do this after they succeeded with some simpler tasks and announce that this is a advanced task and that they have some time to think. This avoids fear of failure and gives an extra boost of confidence if they succeed.
Give positive feedback whenever you can. This does not mean that you should be drowning the student in praise, but rather avoid fuelling their anxieties by forgetting to let them know that they are correct when they are.
If the student makes a mistake in their elaborations, let the student finish first, assert what was correct and then remark or possibly ask about the mistake. For example, if the student is elaborating on some equation and made a sign flip, do not remark upon it right away, but let the student finish. Then praise what was correct and ask them to elaborate their reasoning for that sign again. This has the following advantages:

It doesn’t break the student’s flow by interrupting their elaborations and lowering their confidence due to the mistake.
It gives the student an opportunity to detect the mistake themselves, e.g., by detecting it due to a follow-up problem.

Announce the examination mode beforehand as much as reasonable, to reduce any uncertainty due to an unknown situation as far as possible.

This is all very good, but I wonder if it happens that students complain that the mark that they received is not as good as all f the praise during the exam indicated it should be.

@CarstenS: See my edit.

@CarstenS In my alma mater, the student can raise it with the head (head of department, if this is the examiner, the dean). The student gets 3 attempts in total, and can request the next attempt to be performed in front of a committee. While not perfect, it helps in a way. Also, IIRC once the students were able to prove that the examiner was unjust and biased, that was a "thin ice" case for everybody involved (the school, the students and the examiner).

A few assorted suggestions that come to mind:

Having a good, supportive relationship with the student prior to the exam will make a huge difference. If the student knows you as someone who will make an effort to listen and understand rather than make snap judgements, they will be encouraged to be more forthcoming.
Try to hold the examination in a situation that is familiar to the student. E.g. it could be held in the same office where they have attended tutorials or office hours in the past.
Related to this, a mock exam could be very helpful if it is feasible (though I realise with large numbers of students this could be impractical). Anything that makes the exam seem routine, rather than unusual, will be of benefit.
Build plenty of slack into your timetable. There's nothing worse than waiting outside an exam room for ages for building up nerves.
Start with an easy question. This allows the student to build their confidence and gets them talking.
If you need to make notes during the exam on the student's performance, practice doing this while looking at your notebook as little as possible. It can be distracting for the student if the examiner rarely makes eye contact, and lots of scribbling draws their attention to the fact that they are under close scrutiny. It is very unsettling if the student gives an answer which is met with silence and lots of writing, they are bound to try and second-guess what the examiner is writing about them. Ideally, record the exam and mark it later, though again, this has disadvantages in terms of the time required.
If you feel it is appropriate, remind the students that they don't have to answer right away. If you ask a tough question and the student looks panicked, it is worth explicitly stating "you can have a minute to think about this if you like".

If the student panicks and gets stuck on a tough question you can also try to reword the question, to help overcome the friction that panick creates on the brain's wheels...

Body language can help, too. Directly facing someone across a table is more intimidating than being at a slight angle, for example.

Here is a method for extreme cases, that I actually witnessed being used.
At my school, there was one young lady who was absolutely one hundred percent incapable of answering any question in any verbal exam. She would just freeze, and there was nothing she could do about that. Since there was one oral examination that had to be taken as part of the final school exams, nobody had a clue how she was supposed to ever pass. (Apart from this quirk she was absolutely fine and doing quite well at school).
As her exam time approached, she sat outside the exam room waiting for the previous student to finish and to be called in. Some teacher sat down besides her and asked her if she had been preparing well, whether she had looked at this part of the subject, and that part, and they just talked about her preparation and what she had been learning for about 20 minutes. Then he asked her if she was worried about the oral exam, she said yes, very much so, and he told her that there was no need to worry, because she had just passed.
So one method to calm a student's anxiety: Don't tell them they are in an exam.

What a wonderful story.

This is actually the best possible answer for extreme cases.

Here are my tips (some of them present in other answers already). I divided them into tips that you can apply in advance and which help all students, and tips you can apply during the exam if you notice that the nervousness hinders the performance of the student.

For all students:

Use a part of a lecture to show how an oral exam can look like and feel like. This is something different from telling how an oral exam goes! Really show what you are going to do in the exam, e.g. put a paper/slide under a projector and write down a question exactly the same way you would write it down in the exam. Then discuss what possible reactions of a student could be, what would be a good answer, what one could do if one does not know the answer (e.g. asking for clarification, asking if one understood the question correctly…). Show how an answer of a student may lead to a follow up question.
Announce a fixed a first question of a set of first questions that you will definitely use. This way you can ensure that proper preparation by the student will lead to a good start of the exam.
Start the exam with some small talk just to get the student into "talking mode".
Explain what the purpose of the oral exam is; stress that it is not to judge the students, but to "examine their progress". I sometimes announce something like "The exam is more like a conversation about the topic in which I try to assess how much you learned".
May sound silly, but if your university allows: Allow students to use their own equipments (pens and paper). In fact some students are more comfortable writing with their own pen.

For students with special problems with nervousness: This is more difficult because people can react differently to different things - what helps for some group may not help for another. So you need to develop a sense for this… But here goes:

Give time to think or calm down. I had exams where students sat quiet for minutes (I looked at the watch) but then came up with an answer. It is not always helpful to try to rephrase the question when the student does not response. I would say that giving more time at first is usually better than rephrasing the question if you sense that the student is indeed very nervous. Don't forget to say "take your time".
In contrast to the previous tip: Make the question simpler. If you do so, add that you make the question simpler just to make is easier for the student to say something, and that this does not necessarily implies that the students performance was not good (up to now). Be careful with this because there are many students who will not be calmed by this approach but get more nervous (thinking "Oh no, I could not answer th first question and now the examiner thinks I am stupid.").
Ask if some the student understood the question. Sometimes it is just that…
Acknowledge the nervousness and try to convex that this is both normal and not necessarily a bad thing. Say "You seem to be very nervous. This is quite normal in your situation." Indeed, some people perform well although they appear very nervous.
Ask the student if he or she has a favorite topic or even a favorite question and jump to that topic or even ask this very question. This may sound unfair, but it really is a way to get the student back to working mode again  - if the student is up and running again, you can go back to the normal exam.
Have a short break. Say "Let's make a short break so you can take a few deep breaths." Sometimes an announced break of just 30 seconds works like a charm (sometimes don't).
Make students aware that there is professional help available for extreme cases. My university has something like "psychological counseling" and, whenever it happens that some student tells me they have extreme anxiety for oral exams I mention this possibility, adding that "they are there to help" and that I know of cases where professional counseling worked like a charm.

I would like to add to the other excellent answers, by saying that anxiety is often precipitated by a perceived lack of control, therefore if you wish to help calm students' nerves, you need to let them feel that they have some degree of control over the exam.
There are a few ways you can go about this (and no doubt there are more, depending on the specific situation):

Inform the students of the date and venue of the exam as far in advance as possible, to allow them plenty of time to prepare. If the room is free a few days beforehand, encourage them to use it to practice asking and answering questions with each other, to allow them to get used to the environment.
If possible, show the students the mark scheme you will be using before the exam.
Allow the students to choose their own time slot for the exam. Some may prefer to get it over and done with in the morning, others would rather have their slot later in the day. I would suggest using a tool like Doodle to make scheduling this kind of thing easier.
Explain to the students why you have chosen to set them an oral exam and why you feel it is beneficial for their learning.
During the exam itself, sit facing the student if you can, without a desk in between you. This will help them to feel more like they are having a conversation and less like they are being examined.

Finally, related to what @user2390246 says in their penultimate point, the student taking the exam will pick up on your body language. If you are closed, serious, unfriendly, etc., it will only increase their nerves. Remember to be friendly; smile, give encouragement and open the conversation with something basic.

I've done my undergraduate studies at a university where oral exams were the norm. Or rather, at the end of each course, it was first written, then oral.
The thing that helped me most was having questions in advance. As in, some professors would give us an enormous list of questions - essentially covering all the materials - and we knew we'd get a set of three at the exam.
At the exam itself, we would draw our questions while the previous person was still answering theirs, and we'd have time to compose some notes and think about what we want to say.
That is all.
Thinking back to the most stressful exam experiences, it was when the question (which I would get on the spot) contained wording that was different from what was used in the textbooks. And then I didn't know if it's something I missed and don't know at all, or if it's simply a synonym... I didn't know if showing my ignorance would lead to a fail or not. Thinking back, both times this happened it was with professors who were known to pose trick questions, and who failed students easily. So clarity of communication is vital, as is an openness to figuring things out on the spot. (I would start out broadly and watch for subtle cues from the professor and then eventually figure out the right direction, but I still find the memory distinctly unpleasant.)

Nice way to save time by letting the next student start to think about the question before taking up staff time.

Oral exams can have various pedagogical benefits in certain
  circumstances

First, I would make this statement stronger: for many reasons, I consider oral exams an invaluable tool in teaching, and I require them whenever the size of the class is compatible with the time constraints set by the university exam schedule.

but can also make some students feel anxious.

True, but I also think that this anxiety, if sufficiently controlled, can also have a positive effect on the student.
Here, I probably cannot add too much to the several excellent answers already given, but I would like to stress that one can, and possibly should, adapt the different strategies to the exam type and duration. I'll give a couple of examples from my experience. To better understand the context, a few country-specific remarks (I teach in Italy):

Exams are public, and anyone can attend and listen to the exams. Even in case of scheduled oral exams, many students want to listen to their friends, classmates or simply listen to what kind of questions come up.
We don't have university guidelines on how to run oral exams, and every professor has its own way: type, duration and evaluation can vary.
As a student I took most of my oral exams at the blackboard, but nowadays we mostly sit at the desk with the student: it's definitely less stressful for them.
I'm currently teaching in English to international students and the oral exam is in English, which is a second language for virtually all the students (and me, indeed), and this certainly adds stress.

Depending on the course, I can either divide the exam in a written part and an oral part or just have the oral exam (as I said, I rarely require written-only exams):

In case of a two-part exam, the oral part has a duration of 20 to 40 minutes, with 2-3 questions, depending on the relative significance of the two parts. The oral exam usually follows the written part by a few days (the time needed to grade the written part), and the students can take the oral part only if the written part reaches a minimum threshold. The results of the two parts can be combined in various way, e.g., weighted average or increment/decrement. Passing the written part is by no means guarantee of passing the exam: the student can be failed at the oral part.
In the case of an oral-only exam, the duration is usually 1 hour.

For a two-part exam, I usually start the exam in a soft way by discussing with the student the results of the written part: the student can read my comments, ask questions on the solution and can clarify its doubts. I can also use the written part as a starting point for the first question. In my experience, this is a good way to relieve a bit the stress.
For oral-only exams, whenever the course allows, I try to divide the oral exam in two times. In the first half, I ask the students to discuss a paper that they had to choose during the course; they can come with notes and use them during the discussion. It seems to me that students like this type of discussion -- as much as they can like an exam, of course -- and this helps to warm them up for the second half, which is more canonical and specific on the course content.
After warm-up, the exam continues with broad questions. Admittely, here, I don't follow Wrzlprmft's advice, "do not ask questions that require long and elaborate answers", but I think it's important for the students to learn how to arrange the presentation of longer arguments, with shorter time available with respect to lectures. Many students respond well to this kind of question, and if the student is able to present the argument without hesitation, I let them go on, and I interrupt them only to discuss critical points. If, instead, the student stops, I start suggesting how to divide the topic in smaller portions.
In the few occasions in which a student really panicked, to the point of not being able to speak, I suggest them to have a walk, go to the bar, speak with a friend and then come back to continue the exam if they feel ok. And I recall them a few points about grades.

Another suggestion:
Have additional, earlier, oral exams which count less (or not at all)
Nothing reduces anxiety like controlled exposure. So, if, say, the final exam is an oral one, or part of it is oral - have an oral part of the mid-term exam, which counts for a smaller number of points and is easier. Or have the TAs arrange a mock oral exam after the last recitation session; perhaps even make it mandatory - but so that the grade doesn't count.

Some excellent answers already.  One thing that I always do when giving oral exams is to explicitly tell the student that it can be fine to say "I don't know".
Before I ask my first question, I tell the student that we are trying to find out how much they know, and the only way to do that is to find out where the limits of their knowledge are, and so we will almost certainly be asking questions they don't know the answers to.
Especially for graduate students, who may be used to being the top student in all their courses, saying "I don't know" can be very stressful, and I feel that reassuring them about it can be helpful.

I wouldn't buy that when I was a student, and neither would my students when I was a teacher :-)

Adding one point to the brilliant existing answers: it might be a good idea to point out to people who are inclined to become nervous during exams that an oral exam is in fact to their advantage. In a written exam it is almost impossible to distinguish nerves from incompetence. In an oral one, you notice how nervous the candidate is, and can help them overcome that. Furthermore, you can decide to attribute all their initial blunders to that nervousness, and not see them as proof of insufficient knowledge of the subject.
During the exam, you can acknowledge their nervousness in order to calm them. “I see you are very nervous, and making silly mistakes due to this. But I think (or even know?) you can do better than this. So stop worrying about the mistakes you made so far, take a calming breath and start from the beginning.” Obviously this should happen early in the exam, after a few minutes, so you don't loose too much time and you can benefit the most from the calmer situation. Just as sufficiently many silly mistakes have been noticed to warrant such a reaction. And “start from the beginning” can really mean that the student should present again all the valid answers they have given so far, in a calm and well-structured fashion and without the silly mistakes interfering. That way they will start by talking about stuff they already tackled, which should be a lot easier and therefore boost their confidence.

When asked:

How to help reduce X’s anxiety in an Y?

the normal answer is:

Get X do to Y more often starting from the first week they are at university.

So you could give a five-minute oral exam on each item of course work you ask a student to complete.
You could have your students take turns explaining something to other students in a group.
You could have an oral exam of a student each year, not just in the final year.
In the first year, you can say the exam is so you can learn what students are finding hard to understand, so you can improve your teaching.
You can have a grading system where the oral exam can only increase a student’s grade, and only effects students that are borderline between grades.
You can use oral exams as a way to calibrate the marking of all written exams, but the oral exam in the first and second year does not directly effects a students grade.

Wonderful answers have been contributed.
There is one important aspect that I didn't see covered.
There should be multiple options designed around different people's learning styles.  For example, I myself am a visual thinker, and have trouble processing spoken language.  If you want to make me really nuts, write down a complex sequence of equations on the board, and then, before I've had a chance to copy them into my notes, stand in front of them while speaking about them.
I think for some people, it's helpful to hear an idea or a question, and seeing it doesn't have as good an effect.  Some people are most comfortable talking while writing and drawing on the board.  Some people need to set up a salt shaker and a pepper grinder, and move them around on a table while explaining a complex idea.  Some people will be most comfortable talking while pacing or strolling around the room, or playing with some silly putty.  Some will need to doodle while listening to the question.  Some do best with some combination of styles.
It can be helpful to think about not just different modes of understanding, but also different modes of demonstrating what one has learned.