Uncertain Chad is, well, uncertain, about how best to deal with two competing ideals when using Powerpoint (or Keynote) for lecture classes.
On the one hand, nobody likes a cluttered slide. In science lectures it’s much better to show a single plot augmented with a verrrry limited amount of text. The clarity focuses the student on the most important point, and frees them to actually listen to what you’re saying.
On the other hand, it’s useful for the students to have a more detailed record of what you discussed while explaining the plot. Yes, they can and should take notes, but there is a natural tendency for students to write down Every. Word. You. Say., since they have no context for prioritizing the importance of the information spewing forth. I prefer to be explicit about what the key points are.
My trick for balancing this is using black text on a black background. The text doesn’t show on the screen, but it does show up when printed as a handout, since the black background defaults back to white. Thus, you get the following:
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November 13th, 2009 at 9:18 am
Doesn’t MS Office have a “Notes” feature?
November 13th, 2009 at 9:43 am
There is a “notes” feature. When I try using it, I wind up writing paragraphs in full complete english, turning my powerpoint into a textbook. Throwing up a few clarifying bullet points is way more my style.
This way also saves a lot of paper.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Oh, what?!?! Scientists using Micro$oft? Once you’ve used LaTeX’s Beamer package about twice, it’s faster, prettier, and easier to use (especially when you need to enter or alter equations). You can have a separate notes page, clever background gimmicks… all sorts of goodness. Plus, other scientists will stop making fun of you for still paying for software that makes ugly slides.
Also, nobody under 30 will ever look at a printout. They might pick one up to look like they’re serious about the class, but all you’re really doing is killing trees and wasting toner. PDFs are what they want. PDFs are what they’ll use. PDFs are what you should give them.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I always used powerpoint in conjunction with a blackboard (for classroom use, anyway). Use PP for what it’s best at: displaying pictures and graphics you can’t draw. Give notes on a board.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Use the slide on the right. Different people process information differently, and the left slide will screw people who take in details first and then put them together.
Isn’t finding the balance between listening and note-taking one of the skills that y’all are supposed to be teaching these young people?
November 13th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I give them access to a PDF before lecture. They don’t have to kill trees if they don’t want to, and they can refer to it if they’re textier sorts.
November 13th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
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November 13th, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Interesting idea, but major accessibility fail. You’re intentionally giving different information to people who process auditory information well and people who don’t. That is: you are excluding Deaf students, hearing-impaired students, and people who process information slightly differently that you would like.
In addition, red-on-black is horrible for people who have trouble with visual processing. I would have issues reading that text, and my disabilities are not related to visual processing, or visual impairment. It’s likely that I would end up with a migraine triggered by eyestrain after an hour of trying to read that.
Yes, a PDF makes it slightly less accessibility fail (although PDFs have issues re. accessibility – they’re very bad for screenreaders, so blind students can’t access them, and it’s very hard to change the formatting of the text), but you’re giving disabled students more work than non-disabled students. Not OK.
(For the record: I am disabled. I am also an undergraduate physics student.)
November 13th, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Beamer needs to die. It makes slides uglier than the worst Powerpoint slides. Since it is Latex and it is therefore an involved process to add images, most people stick to text bullet points. Then you get the outline at the top—if you need an outline on every slide of your presentation, you are doing it wrong! Finally, every Beamer talk looks nearly exactly the same! Some uniformity in style is good for papers, but for talks it accomplishes nothing and is deadly dull.
November 13th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Neat trick! Now if only there was a way to hide the double negative…
November 13th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
This seems to force you to make the graph smaller than it needs to be so as to leave room for the “hidden” text. (Small graphs are pet peeve on powerpoint slides – especially people who put three small graphs on one slide rather than one large graph on each of three slides.) Using “notes” seems like an obvious approach.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
@Bevy:
Clearly beamer can’t make people give good presentations. It is powerful enough to let people make bad slides, but if you don’t explicitly make it add garbage to your slide, it won’t. (Compare PP’s horrible slide transitions.) I easily customized my beamer slides to use my school colors, with a nice, soft color scheme, spare, undistracting layout, and great readability. Plus, for those of us who use math, it’s a million times more convenient to just enter the latex, compared to entering latex in a different program, cut-and-pasting (with a white background, for some reason, even if the presentation’s background is a totally different color), aligning, and then redoing it all when you want to change one little thing.
Beamer doesn’t need to die; scientists’ inability to give clear presentations needs to die. Once it does, beamer will be the tool to use.
November 16th, 2009 at 10:56 am
I semi-agree with the people who are saying “just provide the text, some people learn differently.” I’m one of those (I like to listen, but when I read stuff it sets it in for good), so that’s my bias. In my case though, providing the text before hand is the perfect solution. I can read the bullets, absorb, and then be free to listen (and sketch down any prescient notes that strike me) during the lecture.
Course, it’s been a few years.
November 17th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Beamer does provide very good looking templates, although there is a steep, but short learning curve.
I’m usually not too sure what to do with ppt handouts. I dont like what I see on screen just printed out in front of me. Not sure whether I should look up or down at my notes. Rather than throw them away, I use the back side to scribble my calculations later, making me dislike handouts that use duplex printing. Useless now and useless later.
My favorite profs in school are the ones that write stuff on the blackboard, old-school style. I’d rather have my equations slowly dawn into my dull head and get used to them as the professor writes them down rather than have them appear suddenly on a big screen and scar me permanently. The first impression lasts a while and you need to work extra to get over it.
It’s like an anthropologist trying to slowly get accepted as a member of a wary and distrustful gorilla tribe.
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:20 am
[...] stumbled on this odd post about the use of PowerPoint in the college classroom. The basic question is this: How do you help students who rely on your PowerPoint slides as a [...]