Best Lecture Practices and Powerpoints

[HigherEd7]

What is the best way to use a PowerPoint for lectures? How much information should you post on a slide? Also, one of the problems I have is trying to cover every detail in the chapter and I end up getting confused and it becomes exceedingly difficult. I have used the slides that come with the textbooks to save time, but it is not me. Any tips or resources would be appreciated.

[Parasaurolophus]

I put very little on my slides--I treat them as index cards to keep me on topic and remind me of the major points I want to make. And if there's stuff I want my students to consider or discuss (such as a discussion question, a chart, a clip, or whatever), then that goes on the slide. You don't want them to be information-dense. Just one point per slide, and not a wall of text. Sparse words and pictures is what you want. And don't spend time on the animations.

You also need to figure out how many slides you can get through in a period. My personal rule of thumb, given how I work, is max ten slides per hour.

[EdnaMode]

I use my PowerPoints to organize the order of my lecture, and in the semesters when I have more than one lecture session for multiple lab sections of a course they help to make sure I cover the exact same topics in both lectures, similar to what I would do with handwritten or typed outlines. All I have on my slides are topics in the title and two or three bullet points for what I want to talk about. I also include specific graphics and any equations I want to discuss in detail, and any in-class problems they'll work on that aren't in the textbook.

[HigherEd7]

Thanks for the responses! Do you cover the entire chapter or just a couple of main points out of the chapter?

[ciao_yall]

My classes were always around 40 people so small enough to manage lecture/discussion. Each one was just the key points from the chapter/reading that was used as a jumping off point for discussion.

Or, it was a summary of the instructions for the paper/project, the details of which were on the syllabus.

So they were not a sub for lecture, reading, or going to the syllabus.

[Parasaurolophus]

Thanks for the responses! Do you cover the entire chapter or just a couple of main points out of the chapter?

Both? I cover the whole thing, but focus on what I want them to get out of it. The higher the level of the class, the more details we can talk about. When it's just intro, though (which is pretty much all I teach), they can't properly handle the details.

[dr_codex]

I use my PowerPoints to organize the order of my lecture, and in the semesters when I have more than one lecture session for multiple lab sections of a course they help to make sure I cover the exact same topics in both lectures, similar to what I would do with handwritten or typed outlines.

This is the value of ppt for me, too. If I'm going to test it, I almost always want to teach it. (The exception are reading assignments, from which students are supposed to do the gleaning.) Terms, concepts, examples, all go on the ppt. It's an easy way to share that information, and as a happy side-effect deflects the "What did I miss?" queries.

It's especially important for me in discussion courses that have tests and exams, since discussions can go off in all directions. The ppt probably has a guiding -- coercive? -- function, since it implies that there is a direction for the conversation, but I'm ok with that.

I cannot really answer the "chapter" question, since it rarely applies to my course materials. I will say that I won't try to cover it all in the presentation, just as I wouldn't pretend to cover all of the reading in a lecture. I'm often modeling a particular theory, approach, which is frequently independent of the particular content, so I have "modular" ppt presentations designed to show the approach.

[Aster]

There is no single answer to this. PowerPoint is remarkably flexible in how it can be used for lectures.

Nothing but pictures? Professors do that and it's very successful for them.

Outlines with limited text? Ditto.

Packed with notes? Ditto.

Embedded assessments? Ditto.

Powerpoint is a very powerful multimedia tool. Use it as you like. There is no "best practice" for using it.

About the only specific tips that I can recommend are purely technical.
- ensure that text font sizes are sufficient for the back of the room to easily see
- match colors and backgrounds with high contrast for improved readability
- avoid using the margins of the display (the projector or projector screen may cut the margins off)
- watch your file sizes (too big and you may crash the program or cause system lags - embedded graphics and videos can do this)
- make file backups often and on different servers

[polly_mer]

About the only specific tips that I can recommend are purely technical.
- ensure that text font sizes are sufficient for the back of the room to easily see
- match colors and backgrounds with high contrast for improved readability
- avoid using the margins of the display (the projector or projector screen may cut the margins off)
- watch your file sizes (too big and you may crash the program or cause system lags - embedded graphics and videos can do this)
- make file backups often and on different servers

- provide value in some way as the speaker instead of reading the slides verbatim

- provide value in some way as the speaker beyond the textbook either by focusing on the main 3 ideas or by expanding examples with greater detail

- practice all the good speaker habits including speaking to the audience as a person instead of facing the slides to mumble into the wall

[marshwiggle]

About the only specific tips that I can recommend are purely technical.
- ensure that text font sizes are sufficient for the back of the room to easily see
- match colors and backgrounds with high contrast for improved readability
- avoid using the margins of the display (the projector or projector screen may cut the margins off)
- watch your file sizes (too big and you may crash the program or cause system lags - embedded graphics and videos can do this)
- make file backups often and on different servers

- provide value in some way as the speaker instead of reading the slides verbatim

- provide value in some way as the speaker beyond the textbook either by focusing on the main 3 ideas or by expanding examples with greater detail

- practice all the good speaker habits including speaking to the audience as a person instead of facing the slides to mumble into the wall

My first year physics prof lectured to the ceiling above the back of the room. It was incredibly hard to not turn around and see what was up there worth looking at.