Feeling like an old-fashioned old fogey a couple of years ago, I put one of my courses onto powerpoint, and I agree with you 100%!!
> Perhaps this is well tread ground, but I think there is an important > element missing in the recent discussion regarding effective teaching > styles, particular with respect to lectures. What is the impact of > detailed Powerpoint presentations on student attendance, > participation, and learning? My experience (mostly as a student, some > as a teaching assistant) is that lectures can be very effective means > to reach a majority of students in a classroom, regardless of size. > However, when the lecture consists of detail laden Powerpoint slides, > active thought by students is discouraged because more of the > information is at hand at any given moment of the lecture and there is > less incentive to anticipate where the lecturer is going or follow his/ > her thought process. Moreover, when the Powerpoint presentations are > made available before, during, or after class, there is little > incentive to go to class or to pay attention because the student > perceives that they can get most of the information without attending > class. This style of lecturing is inherently 'less active' than more > traditional lecture styles with chalkboards or overheads and has > become increasingly common. > > Thus, following the posts by Bill, Luke, Arathi and Jane, I think > lectures can accommodate something that approaches active learning and > teaching, but the means of transferring information is critical. > Lectures such as those described by Bill and Luke may represent the > best available compromise between two distinctly different learning > and teaching styles (pure lecture vs. pure active learning). In the > absence of having institutions that are dedicated to one or the other > teaching style, which would give students the ability to choose which > style suits them best, it seems most prudent to aim for middle of the > road approaches such as that outlined by Luke. > > Kevin Mueller > Penn State University > Intercollege Graduate Program in Ecology > [email protected] >
