Giving Students Powerpoints

[Aster]

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.

[the_geneticist]

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.

[Juvenal]

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.

[theblackbox]

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.)

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.

[pepsi_alum]

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.

[onthefringe]

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.

[Biologist_]

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.