A while back, Mike Pulsifer pointed me to an article on Ars Technica: Study: class podcasts can lead to better grades.

The article, and the research done by State University of New York, focus on whether using podcasts as an extra study resource for students can improve grades. I am a huge fan of podcasts. Over the past couple of years I have learned an immense amount by listening to podcasts – from language, to photography, to brain science, and design. On iTunes U anyone can access lectures from some of the best universities in the country by downloading and listening to podcasts of each lecture. This is a great way to acquire knowledge or to get further study for a class you’re currently taking.

What I found even more interesting about this study was the method of teaching and study that wasn’t as effective: handing out printed copies of the lecture slides to students. As the author of the article notes, passing out PowerPoint handouts has become “all the rage” in many lecture halls, within or outside the academic world. In fact, two of my previous science courses are designed around PowerPoint handouts – every slide of every lecture for the entire semester is included in a “Lecture Guide” that the students purchase at the beginning of the semester (sometimes in lieu of a textbook).

A printout of common lecture slides is not much different than the lecture – except that you probably aren’t having them read to you by a Ph.D.

But repitition increases recall, right?

Yes, that is true, but do not forget that certain modalities of learning are less effective than others. As Dr. John Medina points out, “the brain sees words as tiny pictures. Reading creates a bottleneck.” (Brain Rules, pg. 234)

This is just one more reason to do away with text on those lecture slides, replace them with images, and maybe even replace the handouts with a link to the podcast version of your next lecture.

I was browsing Slideshare, as I am wont to do, and came across this excellent new presentation by Kevin Gee. It’s actually a slidecast, which means it includes his audio narration.

The Science of Presentation summarizes cognitive and educational psychology research as it applies to presentations. Kevin begins by explaining how our intuition does not always lead us to correct principles. This is so true! I frequently repeat that bad presentation design is not really the presenter’s fault. They just do what the software and social norms dictate.

Kevin proceeds with 3 main topics:

1. Summary of Cognitive Theory

3. Application

In the third section, Kevin does a great job of taking a poorly designed slide and transforming it into a few slides that are designed with the brain in mind.

My favorite part about the presentation: Kevin practices what he preaches. The whole presentation is well designed and does not distract from his narration.

(Via Slideshare.)

I used the slides below for a presentation I gave to an advanced writing course this past September. It was created in Keynote and I presented it using the Pointer app for the iPhone as the clicker.

It won’t make much sense to you by looking at the slides alone, because these slides were simply a visual enhancement to what I was saying as the presenter. This is an important concept to remember when designing your own presentations: the students should pay attention to you, the teacher, and should only refer to your slides when you want them to.

I am working on a stand-alone presentation for Slideshare that will introduce Brain Slides without the need for my explanations as you click through the slides. I will post it soon!

This post is a summary of the information in the 10th chapter of Brain Rules and the accompanying website, BrainRules.net, by John Medina

Eyesight is the body’s primary sensory input. In fact, half of the brain’s resources are devoted to processing vision. This should come as no surprise. Consider little children: their eyes light up when they see their mommies’ faces; their eyes widen when something catches their attention; and they learn to read by looking at picture books! What is surprising is that as they grow up, they are nearly forced to stop reading books with pictures.

Text is Inferior

Primitive man didn’t have a written language – or did he? Cave drawings, carvings, and hieroglyphs actually were a form of written language that happened to consist of pictures. In fact, the type in this post consists of hundreds of little pictures – letters, numbers, and punctuation. That is why the brain takes longer to process text – it has to recognize characteristics of each individual letter before it can decipher a word. Indeed, a picture really is worth a thousand words.

Retention

The human brain is incredible at remembering pictures. If information is presented orally, most people can recall about 10% of it three days later. If the information is presented visually, most people can recall 35%. That is more than 3 times the retention! The results of combining the two are even more impressive, however. When information is simultaneously presented orally and visually, recall shoots up to nearly 65%. (63% accuracy a year later. Nickerson, RS (1968). A note on long-term recognition memory for pictorial material. Psychon. Sci 11(2): 58)

Animation

As it evolved, the human brain learned to pay attention to movement. Almost anything threatening, edible or otherwise interesting could be spotted because it moved. The brain still pays attention to motion, which is why animated cartoons and movies are so entertaining.

In many of the articles on this site I frequently refer to Brain Rules. A brief introduction will help you understand what Brain Rules are and how they relate to presentation design.

Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Home, Work, and School is written by Dr. John Medina, a developmental biologist and faculty member at both the University of Washington School of Medicine and Seattle Pacific University. He studies the brain – how it developed, how it works – and what that means for us in our day to day activities.

A brain rule is “something that scientists know for sure about how the brain works.” For example, scientists know that the brain requires sleep to function well, so Sleep is a Brain Rule. Dr. Medina examines 12 of these principles and discusses how they should influence our daily actions: Because scientists know that sleep is very important, we ought to make it a priority in our daily schedule.

What is astonishing about the book is the realization that most people in our society are breaking nearly all of the Brain Rules! For instance, it is not news to most of us that we need sleep to function well, yet very few people make sleep a priority in our daily schedule. At the end of each chapter Dr. Medina offers simple suggestions on how society’s habits can be changed to accommodate Brain Rules.

So what do Brain Rules have to do with presentations?

In fact, nearly all of the Brain Rules at least indirectly affect some aspect of presentations, teaching, and learning. Rule #1 states that exercise improves brain function. Rule #4 teaches us that we do not pay attention to boring things (i.e. most PowerPoint slides) and Rule #10 emphasizes the importance of Vision and explains why text is inferior to pictures.

To sum up the relationship between Brain Rules and presentations, take a look at this Slideshare presentation done by presentation guru, Garr Reynolds.

To learn more about Brain Slides, buy the book on Amazon.com:

Visit the Brain Rules website, or stay tuned for more posts on how Brain Rules should play a key role in how you design your presentations for the classroom.