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PowerPoint Bad For Learning
cute-boy writes "This article in the Sydney Morning Herald reporting on research done at The University of NSW suggests the use of Microsoft PowerPoint (and similar products) in lectures and meetings actually makes it harder to absorb facts, rather than being a reinforcement of key points."
Is it PowerPoint's fault, or the fault of the Powerpoint creator? I always hate it when someone dumps all the information onto the slide, because it does make it hard to follow along. Whenever I do a presentation, the bullets on my slides are extremely brief, usually no more than 4-5 words. I want people to look at the bullet, see I'm going to be talking about Topic X, and then listen to what I have to say. This allows people to take notes as necessary and it allows them to pay attention to what I'm saying.
I thought it was common knowledge that creating a presentation with brief bullets was the "proper" way to do it. There's no point in even doing a presentation if you're just going to read off the slides, you may as well email it out and not waste people's time.
Oh wait,.......
I've been seeing crappy slideshow presentations longer than computers have been around. Don't get all anti-MS FUD crazy again and start blaming this on MS: the problem is with the presentation format, not the application.
Where's the powerpoint displaying the findings?
Slide 2: Cheese
Slide 3: Conclusion
Thank you, I will now take questions from the audience.
I wonder if I use bold in my signature, people will notice my posts.
See also: information presentation expert Edward Tufte's essay The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint.
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Power corrupts. Powerpoint corrupts absolutely.
--Edward Tufte
The point isn't that PowerPoint is bad, it's in how it's used. The thing they stress in the article is that the PPP and the spoken words should not be exactly the same, basically that the presenter should not simply read their slides. It doesn't mention using the slides as adjuncts to what is spoken, which presumably would be fine assuming the presenter leaves slices of time for the audience to consume the contents of their slides and then mentally switch back to the presenter again. I think that anecdotally most of us are already aware of this fact, presentations where the presentor simply regurgitates their slides tend to be the most boring and least useful (until you figure out that is what they're doing and totally switch mental energies to other things knowing that you can always review the slides later, aka day dreaming).
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However, this guy isn't decrying the effectiveness of visual aids. We can thank Dimitry Martin for that proof (observe his visual aids when explaining the google/viacom spat: http://www.jimmyr.com/blog/Google_Youtube_Viacom_
-dave
6th Street Radio @ddombrowsky
FTFA: "It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented." Well, here's a hint: stop reading from your PowerPoint presentations as if it were a speech. The PPT is to supplement what you're talking about (visual aids, anyone?), not to show to the audience the equivalent of Microsoft Sam "reading" a Word document. This was drilled into me by my CS teachers. For our three seminar classes on the road to my CS degree, you were expected to give lots of presentations, and they needed to last for at least 10 mins. Far too frequently, my colleagues just got up there and read verbatim from what was typed on the PowerPoint slides. One of my CS teacher's solutions was this (after roughly 20 seconds of verbatim reading): "Wait, wait, wait...stop. Just stop. Look, all of us in here know how to read. If you're going to just 'read to us' your presentation, just give us a printout of your PowerPoint slides, and sit down, as you have nothing else to offer and you're wasting our time. Next!" Of course, they got a failing grade for the presentation part of the essay/small thesis and got their feelings hurt. And my opinion? Better in the university than in the boardroom.
In Toastmasters 10 years ago, we had a flurry of short speeches using PowerPoint.
One fellow, working for the Pentagon, said the military had tired of PowerPoint presentations,
where individuals took great effort to produce graphics and sound,
at the opportunity cost of content.
The presentations became more like juveniles showing off their songs and
latest toys.
Large sections of the military then banned much of PowerPoint,
particularly sound and glittering graphics.
I myself continue making presentations with the most difficult
but most thought-out of tools, LaTeX,
which is actually a mathematical book publishing tool.
Graphic and layout design is not easy. Why do you think so many websites look like crap? For the same reason most PowerPoints do: few people have the talent to effectively organize and present information. I've worked on a few publications and have some Photoshop/InDesign classes under my belt. If I must, I can create a decent slideshow that doesn't make people slam their heads against the table in frustration :)
In skilled hands, PowerPoint can be a powerful tool. But it can just as easily ruin a meeting or presentation if the user doesn't know what he's doing...
Of course, it has nothing whatsoever with my ability to understand or the ability of the author to communicate, it all the fault of the tool used.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Edward Tufte, a professor emeritus of Yale has previously written about the problems of Powerpoint http://www.edwardtufte.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-ms g?msg_id=0001yB&topic_id=1 ,
and gives the example of how the 1986 Challenger explosion could have been prevented if NASA didn't rely so heavily upon it for presentations. In summary it's about how Powerpoint is a poor tool for communication, As opposed to just text, or speech.
Rarely is the question asked: "Is our users learning?"
This is your brain.
This is your brain on PowerPoi...what was the question again?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I myself continue making presentations with the most difficult but most thought-out of tools, LaTeX, which is actually a mathematical book publishing tool.
Prosper has all the glitz you need anyway.
I prefer Steve Ballmer's method of interpretive dance.
Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
Its presenting exact same information in the same manner (i.e., the same words) in multiple different formats simultaneously hurts retention. As John Sweller states in TFA:
Of course, anyone who has taken a basic speech class that discusses effective use of visual aids would know that's exactly the wrong use of a visual aid, computerized or otherwise. So, while its interesting research that reveals that what is widely accepted by experts in the field of communication to be a bad practice is actually demonstrably counterproductive to recall rather than merely an annoyance to the audience that isn't an optimum use of resources, its not any kind of particular blow against PowerPoint, presentation software, or visual aids in presentation, just further reinforcement that having an easy-to-use tool to produce and display visual aids doesn't replace understanding how to effectively use them.
Speaking of Edward Tufte, check out 'The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint: Pitching out Corrupts Within' for an excellent critique on the misuse of PowerPoint and a primer on the best way to use this tool.
It's not the program, it's the medium. In this case the medium is the screen.
I once had a Calculus prof whose lectures were awful. This was pre-powerpoint: he used transparencies and an overhead projector. All he would do is plop something on the overhead, read it to us, and then plop down the next slide, and repeat.
One day the overhead was broken. Without a blink of an eye he picked up a piece of chalk and began lecturing the old fashioned way, writing down stuff on the blackboard. The prof was transformed from a deadly boring lecturer to an absolutely fascinating speaker. There was much more class interaction and I learned way more in that class than in any previous class.
Next class the overhead was working again. Sigh.
Life is like a web application. Sometime you need cookies just to get by.
David Patterson has some very good advice on how to give a bad presentation. It assumes low tech (in 1983 all we had were transparent slides), but the spirit of the advice is what counts.
o n.htm
http://www.presentationhelper.co.uk/badpresentati
Presentation Zen. Definitely read their contrast of presentations given by Gates and Jobs. On a personal note, I can proudly say I have never given a presentation with bullet points. I tried hard to give up that crutch and the result has always been commendation afterwards. My audiences have described my presentations as fluid, participatory, and engaging. Avoiding bullet points at least proves you know your material. Also remember that your presentation is there to enhance what you have to say, and not the other way around.
Why bother.
And now please welcome President Abraham Lincoln.
Good morning. Just a second while I get this connection to work. Um, my name is Abe Lincoln and I'm your president. While we're waiting, I want to thank Judge David Wills, chairman of the committee supervising the dedication of the Gettysburg cemetery. It's great to be here, Dave, and you and the committee are doing a great job. Gee, sometimes this new technology does have glitches, but we couldn't live without it, could we? Oh - is it ready? OK, here we go:
Click here to start
http://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
Microsoft forces those who will be giving public presentations to take a one week training course on doing it right. It was jokingly called 'Touch-Turn-Talk' school, for those of us hired who were not comfortable public speakers. Probably the best career enhancement class I ever took. We were videotaped and able to see along with our classmates the the true extent of our suckage.
At the end of the class, the improvement was amazing.
No company should allow anyone to speak for them without some sort of formal public speaking training. The ROI is immeasureable. Microsoft is not responsible for companies using Powerpoint, anymore than Sears would be if you use your Craftsman wrench to club your wife in the head.
I think this perfectly illustrates the problem with Powerpoint. When you watch a lecture with blackboard and chalk, you actually see the ideas develop on the board (if the lecturer is doing a good job). The lecturer can go back and emphasize certain parts of the text or graph, circle things, even erase parts of equations and change them to something else, you can actually witness the analytical process the lecture is trying to convey. In addition to that, you will actually see the lecturer in person interact with the text, graphics and data, which I believe can greatly help your learning. Powerpoint just isn't good at emulating that sort of stuff, and that's why I never use it. Sometimes I use various LaTeX presentation packages, that make it relatively easy to do things like develop equations and formulas step by step, emphasize selected parts of equations, build graphs and diagrams step by step etc. It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than what you can do with Powerpoint. Paradoxically, even with all the animations, fancy transitions etc, 99.99% of Powerpoint presentations end up being much more static than a good chalkboard lecture.
There is also another thing that I believe is nicely illustrated by your example. Experts on human learning seem to agree that people learn better if the environment in which they study changes. Which means that a lecturer should every once a while change his or her presentation style. Using slides one day and chalkboard another day, perhaps depending on topic that is covered, can definitely help your students to learn. Too many professors have their own routine (I do too, it's just so easy to do that) they follow each lecture. Students then come to the class, make sure that everything is the way it's "supposed to be", and turn off. They make a routine out of it, too. A sudden change as the one you describe can bring them back, break their routine, and precondition (I hate that word here, but I can't think of anything better right now) them for absorbing the material better. Even if the actual delivery on that day isn't any better, at least it wakes some of the students up!
AccountKiller
We use powerpoint for 3 of my 5 classes this semester. Last semester, I believe it was 4 out of 5. For all of my classes that use powerpoint, the instructors make the presentation files available before class so we can print them off.
A powerpoint presentation that is well done is much MUCH better than a presentation with overhead transparency sheets, let alone a poorly done powerpoint presentation. Honestly, would you rather be copying down a graph and miss all the information that the instructor is talking about, or be able to mark up comments on the graph as you're following along with what the instructor is talking about? Basically, what we do for all of my business school classes is have the powerpoint presentations as outlines, like what you would expect if you went to a meeting.
Most people can't create good presentations.
(I know I'm not the first to put this comment here; the real reason I'm commenting is that I want to describe how I make PowerPoint presentations...)
I do a lot of technical presentations. I imagine that I am explaining the topic to someone interactively using a white board (which is always very effective). Then I just make slides containing a cleaned up (and often animated) version of what I would have put on that white board. No whole-paragraph bullet points or long blocks of text.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
They can research all they want, but everyone knows how to make a powerpoint presentation *ahem* "memorable"...
Narrator: that's when you'll catch a flash of Tyler's contribution to the film.
[the audience is watching the film, the pornography flashes for a split second]
Narrator: Nobody knows that they saw it, but they did...
Tyler Durden: A nice, big, cock...
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More advice from Dave Messerschmitt.
Re: PP, I agree with some other posts I've seen here that PP can be used badly or well. Most of the aweful PP talks I've seen would have been just as bad (and possibly worse) with another technology.
That said, it's not as though all tools for a given task are equivalent. I'm a lot more likely to make a long straight cut using a table saw with a guide than I am using a hand saw without a guide (and possibly even with).
In this regard, I don't think PP is nearly as bad an offender as MS Word, because Word makes it far too easy to do bad things, like ignore styles, and hard to do good things, like use styles instead of one-off formatting. (In fairness, it seems to be improving, but is still a far cry from, say, FrameMaker from 1992.)
That's a great method as long as you make certain to use local files. I saw one presentation where the presenter had posted his web presentation to his geocities account and ran it off there. Every time he advanced a "slide", an ad came up.
Their findings completely fail to take into account multiple learning styles. People have a mix of learning styles. For most of us, we absorb information most easily when we get it in auditory or visual form - heard or read. There are also kinesthetic learners and cognitive learners - people who don't learn unless they're moving, or don't learn unless they're figuring it out for themselves. Anyone who's tried to teach a fidgetter should know that asking them to sit still shuts down their brain from absorbing information. Every person has their own unique mix of these styles.
People who are heavy visual learners will tune out what the speaker is saying and just read what's on it. Most of the stuff that the speaker is saying is near insensible anyway because those paths aren't very good at absorption. For heavy auditory learners, you could have almost anything on the slide, but it wouldn't matter unless the speaker described it. The power point isn't redundant to the speaker, it's a backup, in case the audience contains heavy visual/poor auditory learners.
The best teachers in the industry also include segments where they have their students moving physically about the classroom. One well-known teacher of teachers has an example where he gets across the difference between parallel and serial by having the students line up and walk across a line, and then walk across the line in groups. The idea behind exercises is to appeal to the cognitive learners.
It's fine for people to say that it clogs the pathways when you try to absorb things through two channels at once, but for most of us it's an either/or, where we pick the one that best suits us.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
The problem is, learning about some new phone doesn't exactly require much intellectual effort on the part of the audience. I really don't think that's the sort of thing that this study is referring to.
I have serious issues with the conclusions of the researchers discussed in the article.
Their conclusions do not fit my own personal experiences or what I was taught in my graduate level courses on pedagogical methods at all. Also, I don't think that pictures are much different from written information, since reading words and interpreting a graph both require processing visual information. Graphs and diagrams are also useless without legends and axis labels written out in words, so you can't avoid the written word by just showing graphs and diagrams on slides.
When I was a student, I found that I got absolutely nothing out of lectures if I just sat there and passively listened to a speaker. I got more out of lectures when I took notes. Passive listening increased the likelihood that I would zone out or fall asleep in the middle of the lecture, particularly when I was tired from staying up until 2:00 am to finish my quantum mechanics homework. Of course, what I got out of my notes and the lecture depended a lot on how well the material was presented. If the professor was not organized, was difficult to hear, had really bad chalkboard skills, and went too fast, I got very little out of the lecture even if I tried to take notes.
Okay, so when I was in college, we still used chalkboards. However, I have the same problems with PowerPoint talks. If I sit there in the dark and listen passively during PowerPoint presentations at meetings or conferences I get absolutely nothing out of the presentation. I've found I retain more when I try to be a more active listener by taking notes and asking questions, but the speaker needs to go slowly enough for me to keep up with him or her.
I also have found that when I study material on my own, I need to reinforce what I am learning by speaking or taking notes. When I took French in college, I learned new vocabulary faster by saying the words out loud as I read them, or by writing the words down while I spoke them. When I read technical articles, I actually need to write down notes on a piece of paper (or type on a computer) as I read or I will not retain any information from the article at all. I think this is the same problem I had in lectures, only in this case, I need to be an active reader, rather than an active listener. I know some people like to use highlighters to mark up their textbooks or articles. This does absolutely nothing for me, as it is still passive reading. I need to summarize everything into my own words in order to retain the information, whether I am reading articles and textbooks, or listening to a lecture.
I honestly do not think the problem with PowerPoint presentations is that they provide too much information and that people inherently have difficulties processing information simultaneously in visual and oral formats. I think the real issue is that people have different learning styles and not everyone learns best through the same classroom or presentation techniques. I don't think that most people have a good sense of self-awareness when it comes to knowing how they really learn best. I found that I actually became a better student after taking courses in pedagogical methods, since I gained a new understanding of why my instructors planned their courses the way they did.
Studying pedagogical methods also helped me find ways to overcome some of the difficulties I had when course material was presented in a manner that did not fit my learning style.
I'm a recent university grad. Some professors chose to use PowerPoint and others did not. Of all the lectures, professional presentations, meetings etc I've attended, Powerpoint was never really the problem. Sure it is if its distracting. The slides aren't to the point. But the best presentations are when presenters challenge the audience's views, are engaging, make accurate statements, and interpret the material correctly. Powerpoint slides don't do this, people do. That's what's missing.
Do you have a PPT of the article?
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It really irritates me that most of the comments in the discussion of this article have focused on the presenters and why PowerPoint is evil. Being a good listener and paying attention to the material is even more important than the quality of the PowerPoint presentation and the handouts. The slides and handouts don't matter at all if you just don't want to be in a meeting or attending a class.
I recently taught a college level science course that is typically taken by non-science majors to fulfill graduation requirements. The other instructors in our department recommended that I make my PowerPoint slides available on the course web site before the lectures. When I started doing this, I found that about 75% of the class did stopped coming to the lectures. Warning the students that they would miss important material from demonstrations, discussions, and in-class activities if they skipped lectures did not make any difference in attendance. The students who were interested in the course and willing to do the work to earn good grades downloaded the notes, came to the lectures, and participated in class discussions and activities. Unfortunately, most of the students were only taking the class because their academic advisers forced them to take it or because they were expecting an easy "A." These students downloaded the notes, frequently skipped class, did not participate in class discussions, and then complained that their low test scores were due to my bad teaching, not their lack of effort. Making the PowerPoint slides available before a lecture only helps the students who actually want to learn. If the students aren't willing to take an active role in their own learning experience, nothing the instructor does will help them to learn or retain the material presented in class.
The same basic idea applies to business meetings and conferences. If you're not paying attention and being an active listener, then it does not matter whether or not the presenter is a good speaker or uses PowerPoint. Having a copy of the slides beforehand does not matter if you decide to skip the meeting since you already have the notes. It also does not help having the slides ahead of time if you do not study them to prepare for the meeting, or if you just sit there passively listening during the meeting. People learn better and retain more when their minds are actively engaged in a presentation through note-taking or discussions of the material being presented.