During my semester studying anatomy for my undergraduate degree, I began downloading podcasts via iTunes U to supplement my own lecture experiences. I came across an anatomy course taught at UC Berkeley by the wonderful Prof. Marian Diamond. While listening to the first lecture in the series, I was extremely impressed with her calm and authoritative demeanor. All at once she exudes confidence and respect toward her students. After a short pause during the lecture to erase the chalkboard, she said, “I have to tell you why I don’t use PowerPoint.” I was overcome with excitement and anticipation as I waited to hear why this capable teacher purposefully abstained from using a popular technological tool. What followed was a brief yet powerful statement that every teacher who uses lecture slides should consider. I include it here verbatim:
“I have to tell you why I still use chalkboard and do not use PowerPoint. Because I’ve studied learning mechanisms long enough to know that it takes time to take in the primary information and associate it. I feel if I just flash on things like this you don’t get it. If you write, you use your kinesthetic sense. That’s one way. It slows me down, it slows you down. And I also repeat all the time, because we know repeating reinforces. First time through you have an ionic exchange, second time through you have protein synthesis. So we’re using things that have been shown for learning rather than just keeping up with the technology.“
Here is an audio clip so you can hear it yourself. Or you can download the full lecture audio from iTunes U.
I was thrilled with her explanation! It wasn’t because she couldn’t use PowerPoint, found it too cumbersome, or time consuming. It was simply that there was no pedagogical reason to use it. As far as learning is concerned, using the chalk board and encouraging the students to take notes is far more effective than flashing something up on the screen.
After further investigation, it seems as though Professor Diamond makes a similar statement at the beginning of every semester (see Fall 2007 and Fall 2008). This suggests that it wasn’t just a passing thought in casual conversation, but that it is important enough for her students to understand the deliberate choice she made to improve their education.
Now, I am not saying definitively that you shouldn’t use PowerPoint. But if you do, there had better be a darn good reason. Don’t use it just because it’s easier or because you want to look cool using ‘up to date technology.’ And further more, if you do use PowerPoint, you’d better make them darn good slides. That’s what this blog is all about, so be sure to read some other posts. You might like to start with 2 Design Changes That Follow All Brain Rules, since we are talking about neuroscience here.
(Professor Marian Diamond is a professor in the Department of Integrative Biology at U.C. Berkeley. Her research includes neuroanatomy, environment, immune functions, and hormones. She has taught all over the world.)
For thousands of years the human brain has developed to process the visual input received through the eyes from the surroundings. Survival depended on being able to see the mammoth from far off, spot the snake in the grass, or the color of fruit in a tree. Only recently in its evolution has the brain’s visual system spent so much time decoding letters, such as the ones that make up War & Peace. The cortex of the human brain has developed immensely to be able to read and ponder such literary works, not to mention complex scientific textbooks. And yet, even now, the brain still responds more actively to vibrant pictures.
Trade weapons for art. Replace your bullet points with high quality photographs. Bullet points are great for shopping lists and talking points, but not for getting your point across. They just don’t work, because text is boring and lists are distracting.
If each item truly is that important, create a separate slide with a high quality image that represents the idea. Or use an image to represent the overall idea of the list, and verbally give the key points of the idea.
Go ahead and bleed. Using a full screen image is much more effective than copying the thumbnail from a Google search. Instead, download the full resolution file and fill the screen with it.
Fill the screen with image for more impact
Don’t clip to save. This is one instance when cheaper isn’t better. Don’t use the built in clip-art for graphics. Dip into your classroom funds and purchase stock images for the really important lectures. Web sites like iStockPhoto sell high quality images for relatively low prices. Once you sign up as a member, you can access their Free Image of the Week. Collect these over the years and you’ll have a substantial library of great images that are bound to fit in to your lecture slides somewhere.
Purchase high quality stock images for important presentations
Join the commonwealth. Ok, so most classroom budgets won’t get you very far, but there are alternatives. You can access a wealth of images created by amateur and professional photographers who license their images for reuse – it’s called a Creative Commons license. I explained how to do this in a previous post.
But that’s not all! There are many organizations who provide many of their images for free. Just for starters, visit some of these sites:
DIY. If you’re still struggling to find the image that you want, get creative and Do It Yourself. Grab a digital camera (a 3-megapixel camera is commonplace today and is sufficient quality for a presentation) and make the image yourself. Take a moment to review some basic photography concepts, such as the Rule of Thirds and lighting, at a website like Digital Photography School and then go out and explore your inner Ansel Adams.
There is so much more that we could discuss in relation to the use of images in your lecture slides, but they can be addressed in future posts. For now, see how you can improve one of your lecture slide decks by using less text and more images.
I recently picked up Brain Rules by John Medina again, and was inspired by one of his chapter-summarizing ideas – to burn your current PowerPoint presentations and start over. I decided to let him help me say more…
Everyone has heard the phrase, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Turns out, it’s true. Written language has evolved over the years from cave drawings and paintings. Indeed, text is nothing more than a series of very simple pictures. For this reason, the brain takes considerably longer to decode strings of text (i.e. bulleted sentences) than it does single words or short statements. In other words, pictures are faster at conveying information than words – at least when we’re talking about concepts and ideas (detailed data is difficult to convey via words or pictures – which is why scientific papers turn to tables and charts).
Here are two steps you can take to use less text.
1. Whittle your titles. Take the time to reduce slide titles down to their core meaning. This will remove clutter and superfluous information that can confuse and distract your students. Use short, concise titles to get the main point across. Then fill in the gaps while lecturing. This allows the student to understand the context which aids in better retention of the details you provide.
Oftentimes, I find a lot of redundancy in slide titles throughout a lecture. For instance, “Using Peer Mentors to Drive Students Toward Deeper Learning and Productive Reflective Writing” could become “Peer Mentors Improve Learning.”
“What Do Professional Learning Communities Have to Do With Factoring A Trinomial?” could become “Math and Society” or “The Role of Math in Society.”
“A History of the Culture of Tea in Britain” might be simplified as “British Tea Culture.”
2. Remove bulleted text. Bullets on a slide often serve only as lecture notes to prompt the professor and are not necessary for the students. Sure, they need to know the information, but you’re going to explain the important concepts during the lecture. If you need those notes while you’re presenting, cut and paste them into the Presenter Notes in your slideware. You can then print off the slides as lecture notes or use Presenter Mode while in class. Remember, guns don’t kill people, bullets kill people.
Dr. Medina’s Brain Rules are fascinating. Not in the same way that Brian Greene’s eloquent description of The Elegant Universe is fascinating. No, it is much simpler than that. In fact, Brain Rules are fascinating because they are simple. While they are based on years of complicated scientific research and their implications are far reaching, Dr. Medina’s rules to survive at home, work, and school are so simple that it is fascinating that we didn’t think of them earlier.
In a similar way, it is nearly laughable to me that PowerPoint slides are still designed in a complicated and counter-intuitive manner. Due largely to the misused hierarchical organization techniques that are the foundation of Microsoft’s templates, professors, lecturers, and students continue to fill their slides with line after line of boring, bulleted text.
Fortunately, the steps to improving lecture slides are as straight forward and obvious as are Brain Rules. In fact, there are two design changes that can be used on any slide deck to instantly improve it’s effectiveness.
In upcoming posts, I will explore each of these in more detail and give practical examples of how they can make an impact. For now, see how you can apply them to your lecture slides.
