I was asked just a week and a half ago to help two faculty members prepare some slides for a conference they would be presenting at in Montreal. I knew it would be a challenge, but after hearing a little bit more I was very interested and agreed.

Then I gathered a few more details. They were presenting a 4-hour workshop in under 2 weeks! I realized this would be a much larger project than I anticipated. But it has been a great learning experience.

Pat Esplin and Dr. Stefinee Pinnegar were great to work with. They were excited about their work and accepting of my suggestions and changes. Pat openly admitted to me upfront that she used PowerPoint as her notes. “We have too much text and too many slides! I know we’re going to have to cut something out.” I was excited to hear that because it meant we were on the same page. Even better, when I asked why they called me, they said it was because they both had seen my work at the ELL Symposium a month or so ago and wanted their presentations to look similar.

Here is a sampling of the slides before and after the makeover.

You can see an animated version of the final slides here:

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.

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.

I recently came across this video by Chris while browsing Ethos3.com

While he isn’t the most exciting presenter, he does give a great summary of the most important points presentation design in an academic setting.

I was especially interested in the Q&A portion. One audience member said that if she were to just put up pictures and a few words she is afraid her students would think that it was a “Mickey Mouse course.”

Is Powerpoint evil? from Chris on Vimeo.

What do you think:

Is good slide design too juvenile for an academic setting?

This post is a summary of the information in the 4th chapter of Brain Rules and the accompanying website, BrainRules.net, by John Medina 

Probably the most important Brain Rule for education has to do with attention. It is what students struggle the most to give and what teachers struggle the most to get.

Multi-Tasking Myth

The brain receives inputs from all of the body’s senses and it decides how to allocate its attention. The brain cannot pay attention to two things at once. That’s right: multi-tasking (when it comes to attention) is not possible! The brain can change it’s attention very rapidly, however, but this comes at great expense. Whenever the brain shifts its attention, it must first disengage from the current task before it engages in another. Although these shifts in attention occur very rapidly, they can add up quickly. Imagine a student who is listening to music, checking Facebook, instant messaging, and talking on the phone all at once! The brain is constantly shifting its attention between these tasks.

Research shows that so-called ‘multi-taskers’ take up to 50% longer to complete a task and commit 50% more errors when compared to those who focus solely on the task at hand.

Meaning Before Details

The brain evolved to understand the bigger picture before it comprehends the details. Comprehension and recall both improve when key ideas are presented before specific facts. This is because the brain records information hierarchically in categories. Without the big picture, the brain doesn’t know where the little details fit and loses interest.

The brain also looks for information that is useful or relevant to survival. When primitive man came in contact with an animal or plant, the brain would ask itself three questions:

Can I mate with it and will it mate with me?

Can I eat it or will it eat me?

Have I seen it before?

Based on those questions, it would decide whether it was worth paying attention to. Similarly, the modern human brain seeks to understand whether information is worth remembering. The brain may pose questions such as:

Can I use this knowledge to impress a girl?

Will this knowledge help me get a job?

Have I learned this information before?

By effectively asking, “What’s in it for me?” the brain determines whether the material being presented is worth the effort to pay attention to, process, and retain.

Emotion

Stories are a wonderful way of transmitting information. Many cultures have used storytelling as their primary method of passing on their histories. Stories are effective for two reasons. First, as explained above, even if the details of a story change, its meaning can remain intact. More importantly, though, stories are effective because they evoke a very primitive and powerful force: emotion.

As almost anyone will confirm, emotional events are remembered better than emotionally neutral events. Action packed sports games, tear-jerking movies, and funny commercials can be recalled quickly and easily.

10 Minutes

Multiple studies, as well as common classroom experiences, show that most brains cannot pay attention to the same thing for very long. The attention span generally lasts between 10-20 minutes, but rarely, if ever, spans the full 50 minutes of a regular college lecture.

It is interesting to note that the brain doesn’t require much to restart the clock, so to speak. A brief diversion of a few minutes is enough.