Towards Better Presentations..."My Seven Deadly PowerPoint Sins"

Periodic Table Families Revised 09

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Periodic Table R08

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I use PowerPoint in my science classes most days as it is an easy way to organize and share the information I want to cover with students and it provides a record for me and my students of what we discuss each day when reviewing a day's material and at the end of a unit when preparing for tests. I also like PowerPoint as videos, images, url links to information on the web can be contextually embedded in the PowerPoint presentation to enhance the presentation of class content. PowerPoint also allows me to easily revise or add to my presentation based on student misconceptions and depth of understanding on the spot or for subsequent classes. As a language teacher, I like the ability of PowerPoint to support a student's listening comprehension and understanding of a lecture along with student note-taking and deciphering of teacher handwriting and speech decoding. PowerPoint presentations are unfortunately easy to put together quite horribly. Text and images can fill and litter an extensive number of PowerPoint slides in a miniscule number of minutes...to the detriment of student learning and effective teaching. There are many great resources on the web to help presenters create more effective PowerPoint presentations. I especially like these blogs from Presentation Zen blog website:

• What is good PowerPoint design? (talks about the importance of context in determining what is 'appropriate or inappropriate' in terms of creating and presenting a 'great' PowerPoint)
• From design to meaning: a whole new way of presenting? (talks about six fundamental aptitudes relevant for today's 'conceptual age' and presentaions: 'Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning')
• Make your next presentation naked (talks about designing and delivering presentations with 'simplicity, clarity, honesty, integrity, and passion')
  

As a teacher, reading the above and other resources I did not so much find myself surprised at any novel ideas found in these articles but rather ashamed that in the interest of time I was using PowerPoints that I knew could be greatly enhanced for more effective student learning and teaching. So as a reminder to myself and a visual record of my promise to find the time to create better PowerPoint presentations for my students, I will list my seven deadly PowerPoint sins...

1. Using PowerPoint as a time saving rather than a creative tool
2. Using PowerPoints that require students to be passive listeners rather than active participants
   
3. Using PowerPoint to relay (lecture on) rather than discuss class content
4. Using PowerPoints in ways with which I am comfortable and familiar
5. Using PowerPoint slides that are loaded with sentence-level text using complex structures and vocabulary
   
6. Using PowerPoint slides that are 'busy' with text, images, links, color
7. Using PowerPoint slides that are impersonal, not show my personality
   

A first step in moving beyond these sins has been the revision of the attached PowerPoint. Periodic Table_r08 is the original class PowerPoint and Periodic Table_Families revised_r09 is the revised class PowerPoint predominately for slides 37-48 of the original PowerPoint. In comparing the two PowerPoints, I hope the following areas are notable and improvements on the original PowerPoint and my seven sins:

1. Time was taken to improve a PowerPoint used in previous years in order to enhance its pedagogical and creative potential
   
2. The images depicting key terms (slides e.g. slide 22), videos (slide 15), interactive web sites (slide 3), and blank slides for student generated text (slide 8) require active participation on the part of the students
3. Active participation as demanded in # 2 above and the elimination of the need to take notes with the provision of a PowerPoint slide handout facilitated class discussion
   
4. Using PowerPoints to facilitate class discussion
   
5. Each slide has less text than the original and color to identity key terms and images depicting key vocabulary
   
6. The slides have more images, color and links but less text (~a trade-off, perhaps)
   
7. The choice of images (slide 31) and cartoons (slide 9 and 24) showed my personal interests and humor
   

In using the revised PowerPoint with my Chemistry 9 students I noticed a greater interest, understanding, and retention of the content through the use of more video clips (especially MythBusters, which the students ask every day if we can watch another video clip from what has now become their favorite Discovery channel show), images, and less text per slide. I also printed the revised PowerPoint for the students as a 3 slide handout so that the students and I could focus on discussing together the content of the presentation rather than having the students' focus taken up with notetaking. Having more video clips, URL links, and images and less text also freed me to engage the students in a more natural discuss versus lecture on the class content. Overall, I found the PowerPoint, revised and presented as describe above, provided the students more time for reflective thought and class discussion while presenting the content with more salient and memorable visual connections. There is much more I can do to improve this and each of the PowerPoints I used in my class so I encourage myself to continue by the words of Scott Reed, "This one step - choosing a goal and sticking to it - changes everything."