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Academic Discussions => Teaching => Topic started by: HigherEd7 on May 23, 2020, 06:13:41 AM

Title: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: HigherEd7 on May 23, 2020, 06:13:41 AM
When teaching online is it a good idea to give students a copy of the powerpoint? I know some people do it and some people don't. I try to put myself in the shoes of the student if I had the PowerPoint would I take the time to read the chapter. 
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: arcturus on May 23, 2020, 06:40:28 AM
Do you provide the powerpoint slides when you teach face-to-face? Whatever reasoning you use for that decision should also apply to online lectures. In my case, providing the powerpoint slides makes it more likely that students will take notes, as they have the basis of the lecture readily available. But that is also because my lectures contain more information than what is printed on the slides.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: HigherEd7 on May 23, 2020, 07:01:06 AM
Quote from: arcturus on May 23, 2020, 06:40:28 AM
Do you provide the powerpoint slides when you teach face-to-face? Whatever reasoning you use for that decision should also apply to online lectures. In my case, providing the powerpoint slides makes it more likely that students will take notes, as they have the basis of the lecture readily available. But that is also because my lectures contain more information than what is printed on the slides.

Thank you for the response. I very seldom give students the powerpoints in my face to face course and maybe this is something I need to start. I was thinking about giving them the PowerPoint in the notes format so they can read and take notes.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: VaticanCameos on May 23, 2020, 07:32:57 AM
During a normal semester, I post the PowerPoint slides both as the 3 and the 6 slides per page handout pdf formats.  My slides have lots of images, many of which aren't in the texts we use.  I don't normally allow students to use laptops in my classroom and lab, and this format, along with some reminders, helps to encourage students to take notes.  Once we transitioned to remote learning, several students requested the complete file so they could take notes electronically because they don't have printers at home.  So I did, but I removed my presenter notes which wouldn't make much sense to them anyway.  My lecture content was narrated PowerPoints (broken into 10 minute chunks with some typing and drawing onscreen during the lecture) with captions that could be downloaded to be used as a transcript. 
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: Sun_Worshiper on May 23, 2020, 08:24:37 AM
I post the ppts online the day before class.  Some students follow them as I lecture, others seem not to notice that they are there.  Like VaticanCameos, I like to put images (e.g. tables and charts) instead of text, so that the slides enhance the readings instead of summarizing them and so students can't depend on the slides without readings or lecture to put them into context.  I don't think it affects how much students do or do not read.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: theblackbox on May 23, 2020, 08:47:56 AM
I don't give PowerPoints for class because I've found students interpret that to mean they don't need to take notes, and then are upset when they are unprepared for the exams. Also, I highlight why physical note taking by hand is superior to typing notes (the deeper level processing of using shorthand and consolidating what is most important, rather than trying to transcribe word for word). Most of my students appreciate the rationale for it by the end of the course even if they start of resistant to the idea, because they become better note-takers over time.

I am rethinking this for my hybrid/online class situation that I'll be facing this fall. A large part of the reason I'm rethinking it is that I know my assessment methods will change, too, because open-book/open-notes has to be the presumed default if the exam is administered online. (We have no paid proctoring services.) Does it make the hand-written (or typed since I can't regulate how they take notes while on Zoom) notes that much more important and valuable, and so I should provide no slides? Or should I restructure the exams to remove all questions that aren't application-based and essay format, and provide slides that are even more bare bones than usual? ("5 ways to reduce __" with numbered bullets 1-5 being all that's on the slide.) I haven't decided yet.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: nescafe on May 23, 2020, 09:00:53 AM
I've always given my powerpoints to the class as study guides.

However, this quarter, most of my students copy-pasted those powerpoints into exam answers, a novel (and not unclever) form of cheating that I've never encountered before.

Another student uploaded my slides to Coursehero, along with other materials that put both my own privacy and that of my students at risk.

If I'm teaching online again, I will probably not furnish my students with my slides. It has stopped them from viewing the lectures and opens far too many new opportunities for academic integrity violations.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: OneMoreYear on May 23, 2020, 11:09:56 AM
Quote from: VaticanCameos on May 23, 2020, 07:32:57 AM
During a normal semester, I post the PowerPoint slides both as the 3 and the 6 slides per page handout pdf formats.  My slides have lots of images, many of which aren't in the texts we use.  I don't normally allow students to use laptops in my classroom and lab, and this format, along with some reminders, helps to encourage students to take notes.  Once we transitioned to remote learning, several students requested the complete file so they could take notes electronically because they don't have printers at home.  So I did, but I removed my presenter notes which wouldn't make much sense to them anyway. 

My process is like VaticanCameos. In a typical face-to-face semester, my powerpoints are posted on the LMS in PDF handout form and, as is relatively typical in my department, I give out hard copies for them to write on in class.  But, since the switch to remote, I've been posting the powerpoints with my notes removed, so they can take notes directly on the powerpoints in the notes sections. Like many here, I try to have limited text on the slides themselves, with primarily a few phrases with pictures, graphs, and charts (though I continue to work on this), so my powerpoints slides couldn't be posted as answers to exam question, as was described by nescafe (or at least they would be really poor answers to the question).  And my notes pages would not make much sense to them anyway for most of the classes I teach, as they are notes like "talk about that one time with the baloney and sushi" and "compare/contrast to results by Bill & Ted, 1989). With newer classes my notes pages have more information to remind me what points I need to cover, but they wouldn't help the students understand the material.

During the remote experiment this summer, I have had several times where my screen has frozen such that students could hear me, but I couldn't do anything visual in the system, so it was useful to be able to say, "OK, go to the next slide (slide 13 with the picture of the alien, slinky, and gametable) and follow along while I fix this."
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: Parasaurolophus on May 23, 2020, 03:05:37 PM
I do the same as theblackbox, for the same reasons.

IRL, if I give them the powerpoint slides then they (1) don't even attempt the reading, (2) don't bother taking notes (why they think that's a good idea, given how little is actually on the slides, is a total mystery), and (3) stop coming to class. It just seems to reinforce or excuse their bad habits.

Online, they do get the slides. That's because I'm just narrating the slides, with some bonus video content. I don't pretend it's good pedagogy, but that's what they're getting until I'm given the time and resources to develop better materials.

Of course, I just discovered at least one student who didn't understand that I was narrating the slides. No wonder he was confused.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: mamselle on May 23, 2020, 05:08:21 PM
I've made my Ppts available in a class notebook kept on closed reserve at the library. If they want them, they go and copy them.

I don't know how many did overall, but when I'd retrieve the notebooks at the end of the semester, the check-out tags (they could also take them out for 24-hrs over a weekend) didn't have many stamps, so I'm guessing not many.

More recently, posting things on CMS, as noted on a thread elsewhere, I didn't see many folks opening those, either.   

I figure I make my classes pretty hard, so any help they get from anything I have to offer is fine.

I'm not enclosing anything proprietary, and I figure the point is for them to learn in whatever way works for them.

All my quizes and exams are open-book/open note-book, anyway.

So, if I dangle a few balloon strings down and they catch an idea that way, so much the better.

M. 
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: lightning on May 23, 2020, 05:28:28 PM
Giving out my pptx accomplishes absolutely nothing except to keep the Disabilities office off my back.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: spork on May 24, 2020, 01:27:03 PM
Why give away what you can sell for money?
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: Hegemony on May 24, 2020, 02:39:00 PM
My students in my online classes can download the PowerPoints whenever they want. Why wouldn't they be able to?  So they can watch them as many times as they want. They're in PDF form, though, so they couldn't cut and paste from them. Anyway, I don't give exams in which the answer is spelled out on any PowerPoint.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: marshwiggle on May 24, 2020, 02:40:36 PM
Since no-one has suggested anything similar, I'll explain my use of powerpoints.
Two things about my courses:

My lecture notes are posted online publicly. I want them to be  a useful reference for students, so they contain

In the lab, when someone asks a questions which is answered in my lectures note, I direct the students to the appropriate lecture.

Background:
When  I was an undergraduate, I was annoyed at how lousy the textbooks were as references, because so many important derivations were not included in order to be left for assignment questions. So, the professionally printed, carefully typeset book didn't contain important material that I might want to look up later; that would be in my messy handwritten lecture notes (if the prof covered it in lecture) or in my handwritten assignment. Since both of these would probably be lost or discarded after the course they were a poor repository for information.

I still feel much the same; the value of assignments is in applying knowledge, so leaving important things out of the text is (to me) unproductive.

So, for that reason, my lecture notes contain the derivations, illustrations, etc. that students can refer back to later. And they're online and public so they can look back at them whenever they want.

Just for a different perspective.....


Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: jerseyjay on May 24, 2020, 05:53:19 PM
In my classroom courses, I do not use PowerPoint. Which means I do not hand them out.

(I do not use PowerPoint for several reasons. I find that PowerPoints inhibit good discussion, since they imply a linear way of looking at the material. I find that many students simply copy down the slides without actually thinking what they are supposed to get out of a class. I find that PowerPoint encourages me, as an instructor, to spend too much time on preparing the slides and less on preparing what I want to say--my lecture notes are written on yellow legal pads, and I often redo them before class. I also worked for a while at a company where PowerPoint presentation took the place of saying anything meaningful. I am not religious about any of this, so I won't get mad if you like PowerPoint.)

Online, I often post PowerPoint presentations, which walk the students through key terms and concepts. This does not provide all the answers they need, but (hopefully) serves as a guide to the reading. Obviously I let students download these.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: Aster on May 25, 2020, 01:08:28 PM
Quote from: theblackbox on May 23, 2020, 08:47:56 AM
I don't give PowerPoints for class because I've found students interpret that to mean they don't need to take notes, and then are upset when they are unprepared for the exams. Also, I highlight why physical note taking by hand is superior to typing notes (the deeper level processing of using shorthand and consolidating what is most important, rather than trying to transcribe word for word). Most of my students appreciate the rationale for it by the end of the course even if they start of resistant to the idea, because they become better note-takers over time.
THIS.

And to verify the accuracy of the model, I gave out my instructor notes throughout March and April this Spring. The bulk behavior of students went exactly as predicted. A lot of people didn't review the material at all except right before the exam, or *during* the exam via smartphones. Exam scores overall tanked hard. I even received a few highly unusual nastygrams from students complaining that they the new exams "were much harder" and they deserved better grades, even though the new exams were greatly simplified and I could tell immediately from examining their answer responses that those students had not studied one teeny bit.

I'm probably not releasing my instructor notes in the Fall. I will record my lectures and students will be forced to watch them if they want to collect all their study material.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: the_geneticist on May 27, 2020, 02:27:07 PM
I would post a "student version" of the slides as a .pdf file for students.  I had a different "instructor version" that I used that had extra things like multiple slides to step through a figure, challenge problems or other information I wanted to use as a discussion prompt, quiz questions, etc.  That way they were more motivated to pay attention in class.  I also posted any figures/data/videos/etc. that were not from their textbook.  But I didn't post my instructor notes.
I'd say go ahead and let them have your slides.  Mine were mostly figures anyway.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: Juvenal on May 27, 2020, 04:01:46 PM
Being a retiree, and only adjuncting for a while (since 2014), I have to say I see the objections to my students having later access to the PowerPoints they see in lecture a bit inexplicable.  Why should they have fifteen to twenty-five seconds to see what I spent quite a lot of time assembling, focusing on prime points, and then closed off forever for them to review?  OK, sometimes I put the slide up longer, and then turn on the charm.  What's the downside?  Yeah, OK, tell me.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: theblackbox on May 27, 2020, 04:50:52 PM
Juvenal, it depends on how you PowerPoint, but I'll requote what I said earlier as to why I don't make them available after the fact: shallow processing vs deep processing when engaged in physical note taking. I spend much longer than 20 seconds avg per slide; more like 5 minutes per, with bulletpointed key concepts on the slides revealed one at a time via animation, and lots of examples or contextualization provided for each one. I slow down and repeat myself for anything I want them to for sure copy down as the obvious cue for "this is important." I find the students have tremendous retention and understandings/applications of the material because of the deeper processing they're engaged in than a passive consumption of me talking while they (sorta) listen. It's worth it for me to go more slowly on some occasions and have them really grasp concepts than to go quickly and try to cover every possible topic.

I'd say 75% of the class takes notes from the start of the semester. After exam 1, 95% of them take notes. (There's always one who figures they'll wing it, bum notes off a friend, but the vast majority recognize how helpful it was to write their own notes.)

Quote from: Aster on May 25, 2020, 01:08:28 PM
Quote from: theblackbox on May 23, 2020, 08:47:56 AM
I don't give PowerPoints for class because I've found students interpret that to mean they don't need to take notes, and then are upset when they are unprepared for the exams. Also, I highlight why physical note taking by hand is superior to typing notes (the deeper level processing of using shorthand and consolidating what is most important, rather than trying to transcribe word for word). Most of my students appreciate the rationale for it by the end of the course even if they start of resistant to the idea, because they become better note-takers over time.
THIS.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: pepsi_alum on May 27, 2020, 09:29:30 PM
I post my PowerPoints on the CMS, but that's because I use them as keyword outlines only. That is,  instead of writing "The Blue Rhinoceros is found in the _______ regions of sub-Saharan Africa," I just write "Blue Rhinoceros" to remind me what to say at that moment in the lecture. If the students choose not to take notes, that's on them. The PowerPoint isn't going to save them. I also use PPT for  guiding in-class activities (e.g., think/pair/shares and quickwrites). I *do* take those slides out of the version that goes online.

As usual, YMMV.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: onthefringe on May 28, 2020, 05:24:16 AM
When I lecture, I project powerpoint with figures, and annotate them as I go using a tablet computer. Occasionally, I add a whiteboard page in order to show a calculation or expand on a point. I do this because my drawing skills are abysmal, so I can't draw my own figures, and because frequently I'm discussing published data, and I want the students to see the data. Annotating as I go slows me down and models notetaking for the students.

I provide note packets online with all the images I will show and encourage students to use them as a base for their notetaking.

Occasionally when I want to make sure they have a correct, step by step example of a worked problem, I'll include one in the notes or post one later, but I always work a different one live.

I get routinely 80-90% attendance, and the vast majority of them take notes.
Title: Re: Giving Students Powerpoints
Post by: Biologist_ on May 28, 2020, 10:37:21 AM
I post all of my lecture slides before the lectures.

My slides are almost all figures and diagrams with minimal text.  For diagrams of processes and pathways, I typically animate the process so that one step shows up at a time or I start with a barebones slide and then I draw components on it one at a time on my tablet. I include some slides that are blank except for a title in order to remind myself to write or draw a diagram or calculation on the board or on the slide. That also shows the students that they should have a diagram or something in their notes corresponding to the blank slide. Many of my slides show data figures from journal articles so that I can pause and ask students to think-pair-share, i.e. study the figure and come up with a conclusion based on the figure. At most, I might include two or three text-heavy slides (meaning several bullet points instead of a diagram) in a 90 minute lecture.

In my upper-division classes, most of the students print the slides or bring tablets so they can write and draw on the pdfs. Some of them take their notes on regular notebook paper and then look at the slides later as they study. I include slide numbers on the slides to make it easier for them to match up their notes with the slides. In my experience, the slides enhance note-taking and allow students to write down meta-comments and the things that I say verbally rather than scrambling to duplicate the content of the slides. Attendance is good and very few students make the mistake of sitting through class without taking notes.

In larger lower-division classes, most of the students still seem to take pretty good notes. As evidence for that, they will often raise their hands to ask me to elucidate my lousy handwriting.

To keep myself organized, I often include two versions of a slide in my ppt file, one that is blank or missing certain elements that I will draw in or reveal as I go, and one that includes what I plan to draw. When I save the pdf to post on the LMS, I include the blank slide but not the filled-in slide. For the slideshow, I hide one of the two slides depending on whether I plan to draw on the slide or show animated ppt elements one-by-one.

I am sticking to the same pattern with my recorded lectures while we are remote, including posting the pdfs of the slides along with links to the lecture videos. I like to post two versions, one with one slide per page for tablet note-taking and one with 4 or 6 slides per page for printing.