Attack of the PowerPoint-Wielding Professors

theodp writes "A CS student blogger named Carolyn offers an interesting take on why learning from PowerPoint lectures is frustrating. Unlike an old-school chalk talk, professors who use PowerPoint tend to present topics very quickly, leaving little time to digest the visuals or to take learning-reinforcing notes. Also, profs who use the ready-made PowerPoint lectures that ship with many textbooks tend to come across as, shall we say, less than connected with their material. Then there are professors who just don't know how to use PowerPoint, a problem that is by no means limited to college classes."

Comments

It Works If The Professor Made the Slides

[curmudgeon99]

Speaking as a former professor who has written two entire semesters of Powerpoint lectures in Java, I think the medium is especially effective if the professor knows the material. I gave away my lectures and posted them online forever, so my students loved them. I also do not use powerpoint as just static slides. I use the animation feature to simulate the execution of code, showing (not telling) how variables are handled, how pass by value versus pass by reference works--things like that. It is really valuable if the professor is not a lazy sack of shit. That's the real problem--lazy professors. Profs who write their own lectures are anything but lazy.

Chalk talk rules

[Dynetrekk]

I've got a masters degree in physics, and I'm now teaching as part of my duties as a PhD studies. At my university, most professors give "chalk talks", and some use presentation software. In my experience, presentation software lets the lecturer skip quickly ahead before the students have time to make up their mind about "what just happened", and don't have time to take notes. During a chalk talk, the speed of progress is limited by the time it takes to write up that big nasty equation, and the lecture proceeds at a natural pace. Most importantly, the students more easily see how you think while doing a calculation; if using a powerpoint slide, forget that.

Conclusion? Chalk Talk rules for fundamental science teaching. Powerpoint is probably OK for management theory classes.

Re:Most professors guilty?

[0100010001010011]

At least you can print PowerPoints. I had numerous good teachers print out all the slides in the 'notes' layout. Where 1/2 the page was the slide and the other half was blank. 3 hole punch it and toss it in your folder.

1) It kept you from wasting time replicating something that already existed
2) You could still mark it up in your own words so that you knew what it meant.

Some even had tablet PCs that they would write on the presentation and send out that marked up version after class.

PowerPoint, Whiteboards, Chalk, etc are just tools. Professors have been good and bad at implementing tools since the beginning of time.

One of the best professors I knew came to class with only 4 color markers. No prepared notes, no book, no equation sheet. The school rewarded him with a semester off because too many of my idiotic classmates failed his class one semester. (Where as classes in the previous 20 semesters he taught seemed to muster up at least 80% passing).

I am a prof, and I agree!!

[bradley13]

Damn, I wish my school administration would read this. Every time a building is remodeled, the projector screens get larger and the boards get smaller. In the newest rooms, the whiteboard is about 70cm high and 140cm wide (30" by 60") - nearly useless. Meanwhile, the projection screen is huge, six or eight times that size. I am forced to put most of my material in the presentation. There ain't no other way to do it!

While I'm venting: there are no blackboards anymore, only whiteboards. Why anyone think these abominations are progress is beyond me: the pens can't deliver ink fast enough - the first few words are nice, then they get faint and the pens don't recover until they sit for a good, long while. I suppose the suits didn't like chalk dust on their pinstripes, but give me a good quality blackboard any day.

We're getting a new school building in two years. I will probably need a magnifying glass to find the whiteboards. Assuming they haven't been eliminated entirely...

Re:Most professors guilty?

[crmarvin42]

At least you can print PowerPoints. I had numerous good teachers print out all the slides in the 'notes' layout. Where 1/2 the page was the slide and the other half was blank. 3 hole punch it and toss it in your folder.

1) It kept you from wasting time replicating something that already existed 2) You could still mark it up in your own words so that you knew what it meant.

I've been guest lecturing in a couple of grad level classes for the past 4.5 years while working on my PhD and I used to do what you indicate here. However, I found that students would skip class, space out while I was speaking, and fail to ask questions when I wasn't being clear enough for them. By the 2nd class no one was taking any notes. Even when I went off script and indicated that they needed to take notes on what I was saying.

The last couple of times I've used PPT, but refused to print out the slides in any form (Except for a student who missed a bunch of time while sick, but I made sure to impress upon her the importance of getting the notes from someone else). By doing this grades have gone up despite me using the same basic slides and covering the same material. Forcing them to actually take handwritten notes means they get the experiential learning of writing the material down at least once.

One of the best professors I knew came to class with only 4 color markers. No prepared notes, no book, no equation sheet. The school rewarded him with a semester off because too many of my idiotic classmates failed his class one semester. (Where as classes in the previous 20 semesters he taught seemed to muster up at least 80% passing).

My advisor teaches this way. I always thought it was just him being too behind the times, but now I know that forcing us to take handwritten notes as he writes out the material on the overhead helps them learn the material and stay focused on what's going on in class.