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last updated: Jul 09 2009
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TA Talk Highlight

Avoiding Death by PowerPoint
by Michelle Achacoso, Ph.D.

Have you ever noticed that you have become very sleepy while watching a PowerPoint Presentation? Do you want to use PowerPoint effectively to present your own work without putting your audience to sleep? If the answer is "yes" to either of these questions then this article is for you. The Graduate Student Instructor program, a component of the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment, offers workshops to help TAs, AIs and professors to improve their use of PowerPoint in order to help students learn. This article will focus on the pedagogical aspects of using PowerPoint. For information related to the technical aspects of PowerPoint, for instance, how to do something in PowerPoint, please contact Mario Guerra.

Based on our informal research, we have noticed that PowerPoint is mostly used as a glorified overhead presentation where the presenter uses the program as a page-turner to guide the pace of the presentation. While this kind of usage can produce very nice, professional-looking presentation, students tend to get bored very easily. Below we will give you some ideas for maximizing PowerPoint as a learning tool all while keeping your audience awake and active during your presentation.

If we know something about how students learn, we can enhance our usage of PowerPoint. One thing we know is that visuals used in the classroom can be very powerful mechanisms to help students learn. To this end we can design the presentation of material to enhance retention and learning and get students actively involved with the material.

Enhancing Presentation of Material

  1. Organization of ideas
    It is much easier to remember material that is organized. PowerPoint can be used as an organizational template to guide your thinking. Other programs like Inspiration, a mind-mapping program, can be used with PowerPoint to show the structure of material.
  2. Direction of attention
    PowerPoint can be used to progressively disclose lecture information. This is an especially helpful tool to guide the attention of your students. Think about what happens when you put an outline on an overhead. What is the first thing that students do? Right! They begin copying everything written on the overhead. Progressive disclosure allows you as the instructor to have your students focus only on the point you are trying to make.
  3. Elaboration through examples
    It is much easier to learn information if you make connections as you go along. PowerPoint can be used to provide additional examples of the material you are trying to cover. You can incorporate Web links or even video during your PowerPoint presentation to help your students learn the material.
  4. Visualization with images
    It is much easier to learn about some concepts when the verbal explanation is accompanied by a visual. PowerPoint has the ability to incorporate simulation software, Weblinks, Photoshop images, or Inspiration maps to help students to understand the complexity of relationships being discussed during lecture.
  5. Provide variation
    To help maintain your students' attention, it is excellent practice to provide variation during your PowerPoint presentation. Looking at slide after slide can become monotonous. Vary your presentation by including visualization, elaboration, and encouraging participation among your students.

Encouraging Participation by Students

We know that when students are active with material, they learn the material more easily. PowerPoint can help you get your students involved in lecture. Here are some ideas:

  1. Brainstorming
    Brianstorming during class is definitely a possibility during class discussion using PowerPoint. You can link to a word processor, Inspiration, or Daedelus to develop a list as you discuss a particular concept or issue. The brainstormed list can even be uploaded to BlackBoard.
  2. Monitoring comprehension
    To help check the comprehension and guide the thinking of your students during a lecture, it is easy to provide an example problem in PowerPoint or link to ClassTalk and have the students vote on the correct response to a practice problem. This helps break up the monotony of a lecture and you can also help ensure that your students pay attention.
  3. Practicing applications
    PowerPoint will allow you to access other software during class to practice problem solving with simulations. For example, switching to a program like Excel during a lecture to have students provide data for a problem, is an excellent way to involve your class in the lecture and show them the process of arriving at the desired answer.

PowerPoint can be a wonderful tool to help you design your presentations or lectures and to involve your students in the learning process. Following some of the suggestions made here can be more time-consuming in terms of preparation than simply scrolling through a presentation. However, to relieve boredom and increase learning, it is well worth your effort to maximize the potential of this multi-faceted program.

For questions on how to integrate various forms of software in PowerPoint, please contact Mario Guerra at the Division of Instructional Innovation and Assessment.