Many of you use PowerPoint as part of your instructional strategies. What makes an effective PowerPoint presentation?
Below is information which came from Vanderbilt University’s Center for Teaching website.
Research about student preferences for PowerPoint
Laura Edelman and Kathleen Harring from Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pennsylvania have developed an approach to PowerPoint design using Baddeley and Hitch’s model. During the course of their work, they conducted a survey of students at the college asking what they liked and didn’t like about their professor’s PowerPoint presentations. They discovered the following:
Characteristics students don’t like about professors’ PowerPoint slides
- Too many words on a slide
- Clip art
- Movement (slide transitions or word animations)
- Templates with too many colors
Characteristics students like about professors’ PowerPoint slides
- Graphs increase understanding of content
- Bulleted lists help them organize ideas
- PowerPoint can help to structure lectures
- Verbal explanations of pictures/graphs help more than written clarifications
According to Edelman and Harring, some conclusions from the research at Muhlenberg are that students learn more when:
- material is presented in short phrases rather than full paragraphs.
- the professor talks about the information on the slide rather than having students read it on their own.
- relevant pictures are used. Irrelevant pictures decrease learning compared to PowerPoint slides with no picture
- they take notes (if the professor is not talking). But if the professor is lecturing, note-taking and listening decreased learning.
- they are given the PowerPoint slides before the class.
Advice from Edelman and Harring on leveraging the working memory with PowerPoint:
Leverage the working memory by dividing the information between the visual and auditory modality. Doing this reduces the likelihood of one system becoming overloaded. For instance, spoken words with pictures are better than pictures with text, as integrating an image and narration takes less cognitive effort than integrating an image and text.
Minimize the opportunity for distraction by removing any irrelevant material such as music, sound effects, animations, and background images.
Use simple cues to direct learners to important points or content. Using text size, bolding, italics, or placing content in a highlighted or shaded text box is all that is required to convey the significance of key ideas in your presentation.
Don’t put every word you intend to speak on your PowerPoint slide. Instead, keep information displayed in short chunks that are easily read and comprehended.
Resources for making better PowerPoint presentations
One of the mostly widely accessed websites about PowerPoint design is Garr Reynolds’ blog, Presentation Zen. In his blog entry: “What is Good PowerPoint Design?” Reynolds explains how to keep the slide design simple, yet not simplistic, and includes a few slide examples that he has ‘made-over’ to demonstrate how to improve its readability and effectiveness. He also includes sample slides from his own presentation about PowerPoint slide design.
Please feel free to contact me for a consultation related to your teaching.
Jim O’Connor
Director