I tend to be rather vocal against use of powerpoint for
teaching. More accurately, I am a vocal critic of how powerpoint tends to be used in teaching. Let me provide a bit of
context to understand how these view may have developed.
I went through my post-secondary schooling at an interesting
transitionary period in instructional practice. The first time I viewed a
powerpoint presentation—or even had heard of the software—was in 1996 as a
first year college student at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. I remember it clearly
because I found it to be so bizarre. It was in a first-year speech course, and
a student used powerpoint to display visual aids for his speech on pesticide
use in Central Valley farms. Classrooms were not equipped with projectors, and even
portable projection carts were hard to come by, so he held up his laptop
with its tiny mid-90s screen and showed us the slides. Meanwhile, my speech on
the medicinal benefits of marijuana consisted of clippings from High Times mounted on posterboard,
accented by fading Crayola markers.
As I continued through my schooling powerpoint made a sporadic,
but still quite rare, appearance in the classroom. It was mostly used to
project images, in courses on art, art history, landscape architecture,
archaeology, etc., as powerpoint was a clear advance over the photographic
slideshows on which I grew up. It really was not until I took a biological
psychology course at San Francisco State University in 2001 that I experienced
a professor using powerpoint as the basis of the lecture itself. The slides
were filled with text, almost all verbatim from the assigned textbook, and the
instructor mostly read from the slides when delivering the lecture,
occasionally deviating to inject a small aside—but then, back to the slides. I
greatly enjoyed the content of that course, but man, did I hate being a student in it. I
spent the entire class session furiously copying down the slides into my notes,
always panicked that the professor would advance the slide before I got down all
of the material[1]. Class
was also incredibly dull, because I was listening to what I was reading to what
I was writing. Not good.
Seemingly overnight[2]
nearly everyone was using powerpoint to
drive their teaching practice. No longer was it an aid, providing visuals to
compliment the lecture, but it had become
the lecture. I was confused, because I felt like I was witnessing teaching
and higher education getting worse right before my eyes. For many years, from
middle school through college, I had numerous teachers who captivated my
attention, sparked my imagination, and challenged my thinking, and none of them
used powerpoint. Indeed, the purpose of this “coming of age” story is not to
provide a “good old days” account of what schooling was like for me in the very
recent past. Not at all. Rather, the purpose is to highlight the fact that I
know, from a good deal of experience, that powerpoint
is not necessary for teaching well, and that powerpoint can even impede quality teaching. While some may quibble
with the latter statement, the fact that the former even needs to be stated at
all—let alone italicized—is a reflection of how far we have come.
My strong views on this issue became even more entrenched
when I began teaching myself. My teaching mentor, Dr. Tom Spencer at San
Francisco State University, was a lauded lecturer on campus. Despite his course
being incredibly difficult, students loved taking it because he was a master
lecturer and, accordingly, they felt like they learned so much. And he never used powerpoint. This is a notable
feat, because he taught until 2010 and never used powerpoint, while by that
time virtually everyone used
powerpoint. Students still loved his class. They still gave him a standing
ovation at the end of the semester. I served as his teaching assistant for two
years, attending every class, giving many guest lectures. I observed closely
and tried to pick up as much as I could.
When it came time to begin teaching my own courses, I
decided to follow Dr. Spencer’s model. It just seemed like the proper approach
to teaching for me[3].
Some years later, I still don’t use powerpoint much at all when I teach. It can
be very useful for displaying graphs or complex figures, but my slides almost
never consist only of text. I definitely use powerpoint more now than when I first
started teaching[4],
but again, it is a very limited use. Over time, I have come to endorse the
following set of reasons why limited use of powerpoint is optimal. You may not
agree with some (or any) of them, but perhaps they will help you to reflect on why
you use powerpoint and what purpose you see the slides serving in the context
of your educational objectives.
Flexibility.
Hands down, number one reason to not use powerpoint: it is like an educational
straight-jacket. You are almost entirely committed to the linear order of
presentation that you determined prior to the beginning of class. This takes
away all of your options. I think of good teaching as consisting of a large
amount of improvisation. You should go into a class session prepared to cut material,
move things around, add in some stuff if need be. Ideally, you make all of these changes
without the students even knowing. This is virtually impossible to do when
using powerpoint. They will notice that you skipped some slides, and they will
wonder about that. Not ideal. Being a flexible teacher can have beneficial
carryover: I have been forced to begin both a job talk and conference
presentation without my slides due to technical problems. In both cases I
received high praise (and even some astonishment) that I was able to give the
talk without the slides. Imagine that, talking about my work without
powerpoint!
Pacing. One of
the challenges of using powerpoint is that it can involve a lot of waiting. You
put a slide up, and the students feel the need to copy down its contents. If
you advance before students are finished with their copying, you might hear
about it from them. When using the whiteboard, you align your pacing with your
students’ pacing. As you write on the board, so to do they write in their
notes. Everyone is working on the same pace, and there is much less waiting. It
also gets you moving your body more.
Movement. Relying
heavily on powerpoint keeps you close to the podium, when you really need to be
moving around. Using a slide-advancing doohickey can solve this problem pretty
well, however. Move your body!
Deeper processing
(potentially). Copying down material from slides onto notes is a form of
shallow processing that does not serve the students well. It might help them
locate and memorize content for an exam, but it does not facilitate actual
learning. Deeper processing, in which students take notes in their own words,
is much more beneficial.
Expectations.
Instructors need to get away from the mindset that there is content they must cover or “get through.” To be sure,
powerpoint cannot be entirely blamed for this problem, but the rigidity of the
format seems to promote it. It is best to have modest goals for what your
students should learn in each class meeting. “Getting through” loads of
material might make you feel better, but what about the students? They do not
benefit from this approach. At all.
Students are
thankful. Over the years, I have received many “thank you for not using
powerpoint” comments but I have never received a “I wish you used powerpoint”
comment. Not one. Students expect powerpoint, and perhaps some instructors feel
like students demand it, but if you are a quality teacher, they will appreciate
that above all else.
A single principle I suggest when creating powerpoints
slides: always seek to replace text with an image, figure, diagram, etc. It can
almost always be done, and almost always should be done. Ask yourself: how can
I present this information in a non-text-based format?
Finally, above else, you should take the time to reflect on what you are actually doing.
Why are you using powerpoint the way you are? How does it link with your
teaching philosophy and goals for students? Is it serving you and the students
in the best way possible? In fact, is it serving you, or is it controlling you?
[1] Which, as noted, was all in the book. Undergraduates
can often be irrational, even those who become professors.
[2] But of course, not really, because that is not how
change happens
[3] I do acknowledge, begrudgingly, that perhaps this
approach is not a good fit for everyone.
[4] Mostly because it is much easier to flip it on and off in the middle of class, to switch
from board to screen and back again. A few years ago this was pretty much out
of the question.
