Now that I know PowerPoint, how can I use it to TEACH ?

1. This work is licensed by Patrick Crispen to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 license.

2. Now that I know PowerPoint, how can I use it to TEACH? a presentation byPatrick Douglas Crispen

3. Confusing novelty • This presentation’s topic is both confusing and novel. • The confusing part is that this workshop’s title might give you the impression we’re going to spend the next hour talking about how to teach students to use PowerPoint. • That’s not what we’re going to talk about at all.

4. Confusing novelty • Instead—and this is the novel part—we’re going to take a look at - Current learning theory and research, - Usability studies, and - Practical experience to show you how to effectively use PowerPoint to teach in any environment—the K-16 classroom, a corporate training center, a community meeting… anywhere. • In short, we’re going to look at how you can use PowerPoint to teach.

5. Supporting research • Since what we’re going to talk about today flies in the face of conventional wisdom, expect to see a LOT of references (in grey) in this presentation. • The full references are at the end of this presentation (in a really small font).

6. A final caveat • While PowerPoint has been around for 17 years, the concept of studying PowerPoint’s effectiveness in the classroom is surprisingly new. • The research is kind of thin and is based mostly on student perceptions and performance in large, undergraduate lecture classes. • So, take everything I am about to tell you with a HUGE grain of salt. In other words, TRUST BUT VERIFY!

7. Our goals • Look at the process we all go through as we learn PowerPoint. • Investigate student perception of PowerPoint in the classroom. • See if student performance supports that perception. • Talk about PowerPoint and student note-taking. • Learn a little bit about PowerPoint usability. • DO ALL OF THIS IN ENGLISH!

8. Powerpointless? PowerPoint is a tool that can be used well or poorly. More often than not, we unwittingly choose the latter.

9. Our PowerPoint evolution We all start the same way: We learn how to create simple presentations, ones in which the message is more important than the medium. • These presentations are usually black text on a (default) white background with a mess of bullet points. • Remember?

10. Our PowerPoint evolution But, as our skills with PowerPoint improve, our focus shifts from the message to “gilding the lily.” • Content takes a back seat to the new goal of entertaining the audience. • We spend HOURS looking for the right sounds, pictures, or backgrounds to beautify our presentations.

11. Fixing the blame Part of the blame for this “lily gilding” focus lies with ourselves. • PowerPoint’s bells and whistles are downright sexy. • We (mistakenly) assume that bells and whistles improve our presentations—our presentations look better, so they must be better teaching tools.

12. Fixing the blame • Along the way, we forget that the primary goal of any classroom PowerPoint presentation isn’t to entertain but rather to teach. • And there is a HUGE difference between a business PowerPoint presentation and a classroom PowerPoint presentation.

13. The problem with PowerPoint • PowerPoint was originally designed for business communication, not teaching. • Business communication is all about entertaining. There’s practically no teaching involved. • Microsoft added those fancy backgrounds, animations, builds, transitions, etc. to PowerPoint not for you and me but for the business community.

14. The problem with PowerPoint • Why? Because by using PowerPoint’s fancy backgrounds, animations, builds, transitions, etc. a businessperson can • Impress you. • Close the sale. • Obscure the facts. • But somewhere along the way we became convinced that we needed to use PowerPoint’s special effects as well.

15. Be honest: do you know fellow educators who spend more time on their presentations’s bells and whistles than they do on the content?

16. Fixing the blame • So, part of the blame lies with us. • But, part of the blame also lies with the trainers and marketeers. • A four year old can create a basic PowerPoint presentation. • To create an “advanced” presentation, however, requires training or even special software (both at a price). • We are inundated with advertisements like this:

19. So, what ARE the possibilities? HORRIBLE PowerPoint presentations, ones that actually impede or inhibit learning. For example…

20. clicktoaddtitle.com Leslie Harpold – Round 2 Lorem Ipsum Dolor “Neque porro quisquam est qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit…”

21. Lorem Ipsum Dolor • Curabitur sed • Nullam pretium • Mauris metus • Curabitur sed

22. Lorem Ipsum Dolor • Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Nam erat justo, sagittis vitae, commodo ut, rhoncus lacus mit nonummy, ante. • Duis ligula augue, aliquam sit amet, rutrum a, gravida quis, lacus. Mauris quam. Phasellus a felis quis ipsum tincidunt vehicula. Morbi elementum dapibus est.

23. Lorem Ipsum Dolor?

24. Lorem Ispum Dolor! “Nam erat justo, sagittis vitae, commodo ut, rhoncus nonummy, ante. Duis ligula augue, aliquam sit amet, rutrum a, gravida quis, lacus. Mauris quam. Phasellus a felis”

25. LOREM IPSUM DOLOR Ipsum Dolor! • Mauris quam. Phasellus a felis . Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere

27. What’s the point? • Awful, isn’t it? • How many times have you had to sit through PowerPoint presentations that look (and sound) like that? • The point I am trying to make is this: The fancier the PowerPoint presentation, the less valuable the ideas being presented. (Lovelace, 2001)

28. Student perception What do your students feel about you using PowerPoint to teach?

29. Student perception • Even with the endless steam of bad PowerPoint presentations we inflict on our students, students still prefer PowerPoint presentations to presentations from transparencies (Cassady, 1998; Perry & Perry, 1998; Susskind & Gurien, 1999; West, 1977) or even from a blackboard or whiteboard. (Frey & Birnbaum, 2002) • Why?

30. Student perception • One reason is that students believe PowerPoint has a positive effect on lectures, especially in helping them take notes and study for exams. (Frey & Birnbaum) • More specifically, students perceive professors who deliver PowerPoint lectures as being more organized. (Frey & Birnbaum) • Now, let’s rain on your parade.

31. Student performance Does student perception equal reality?

32. Three types of presentations • Before we can answer that, let’s agree on some common definitions. • According to Bartsch & Cobern (2003), there are three types of teacher-created “multimedia” presentations used in most classrooms: • Transparencies • Basic PowerPoint, which only includes text information • Expanded PowerPoint, which includes pictures, sounds, movies, transitions, builds, etc.

33. Ready for a shock? • There is no significant difference in scores on quizzes that come from transparencies and basic PowerPoint lectures. (Bartsch & Cobern) • Students do 10% worse on quizzes that come from expanded PowerPoint lectures. (Bartsch & Cobern)

34. Wait, there’s more! • Does adding pictures to your presentations have a positive effect on students’ enjoyment or learning of the material? • NOPE! (Bartsch & Cobern)

35. Don’t use pictures? Are you INSANE? • Did I just say “don’t use pictures in your PowerPoint presentations?” • HECK NO! • You should use pictures, especially pictures that introduce advanced concepts with which your students are unfamiliar.

36. Interference … 15 yards • Having related pictures in your PowerPoint presentation is neither beneficial nor harmful to the students’ enjoyment or learning of the material. (Bartsch & Cobern) • Unrelated pictures in a presentation, however, have a negative effect on students’ enjoyment and the learning of the material. (Bartsch & Cobern) • A picture may be worth a thousand words, but when you use an unrelated picture those thousand words drown out what you are trying to say.

37. For example • PowerPoint 1.0 was actually derived from a product called “Presenter” that was developed by Forethought Inc. in early 1987. • Microsoft purchased Presenter in August of 1987 for $14 million.

38. Notice the interference? • That picture, while [slightly] humorous, had nothing to do with the real content of the slide. • But, I’d be willing to bet that an hour from now you’ll remember the “gasoline prices” picture but completely forget how much Microsoft paid for PowerPoint in 1987. • The slide entertains, but fails to teach. Why? Well…

39. Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning • Students place relevant words into auditory working memory and relevant images into visual working memory. (Mayer, 2001) • Students then organize information separately in auditory and visual memory and finally integrate these representations with prior knowledge. (Mayer)

40. The problem with pictures • The on-screen text in PowerPoint is processed in visual memory because it is seen, viewed with the eyes. (Bartsch & Cobern) • Relevant pictures do not help because they are also stored in visual memory along with the text—no new information is added over a different channel. (Bartsch & Cobern)

41. Are pictures necessary? • You may not need any pictures in your PowerPoint presentations. • Students are usually able to understand the facts without the help of a picture. • Besides, the facts are what’s going to be on your test, not the pictures. • However—and this is an important point—when the material is more complicated or the students do not know much about the information, pictures may be beneficial. (Bartsch & Cobern)

42. In short, only use pictures to teach, not to decorate or entertain.

43. And don’t forget • Enhancing a PowerPoint presentation with even relevant pictures takes, on average, 50% more time than creating a basic (text-only) PowerPoint presentation. • This extra effort yields no measurable gain in either student enjoyment or learning. • But it sure does look pretty.

44. Striking a happy medium • If you absolutely have to use pictures in your presentations, make sure the pictures are absurdly relevant. • When in doubt, leave it out. • Better still, put all testable content on text-only slides and then go crazy with your filler slides. • That way the presentation will look pretty, but the “real” content won’t be lost due to visual interference.

45. Try it yourself! • The research on this topic is still a little thin, so don’t just take my word. EXPERIMENT! • Create two versions of the same PowerPoint presentation: • One loaded with pictures, sounds, builds, animations. • One that is painfully generic (like the presentation you are currently viewing). • Give the presentations to two different classes or sections and then see what the student test results are. • And, as long as we’re talking about student test preparation, let’s take a look at…

46. PowerPoint and student notes More happy mediums

47. Do your students need help? • Do your students need help taking notes? • In a word, YES! (Potts, 1993) • According to Kiewra (1985), even your most successful students are missing many of the important points in your lectures. • The best (college-level) note-takers include less than three quarters of critical ideas in their notes. • First year college students fare far worse: their notes contain only 11% of critical lecture ideas.

48. Is note-taking even necessary? • Does student note-taking, however badly the students may do it, improve performance on fact-based tests? • Of course! (Kiewra, Potts) • But whose notes should the students review when it comes time to prepare for a test: theirs or yours?

49. Notes and student performance • Not surprisingly, students who only review the instructor’s notes perform better on fact-based tests of the lecture material than do students who only review their own notes. (Kiewra, Potts) • Even less surprisingly, students who don’t even show up for the lecture but who review the instructor's notes score higher than students who attend the lecture and take and review their own notes. (Kiewra, Potts)

50. Giving students your notes • So, to increase student performance, should you tell your students not to take notes at all and instead give your students printed copies of your PowerPoint presentations? • Not exactly. • The problem is that students remember a greater proportion of the information in their own notes than in provided notes. (Kiewra, Potts)