As a student, I also prefer traditional lectures. Powerpoint seems to interfere with the social aspect of lecturing, perhaps by forcing the lecturer to follow a pre-determined outline or by drawing the students' eyes toward the screen and away from the teacher. Dimming the lights doesn't help!
Jane On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 1:51 PM, David L. McNeely <[email protected]> wrote: > Your post is interesting. It is the first time I have ever heard a student > state a preference for more traditional lecturing over PowerPoint lectures. > I happen to think you make a very important point. However, I have heard > the complaint from students, regarding a colleague whom they chose to blame > for their lack of success, that, "He doesn't even use PowerPoint for > lectures. He just uses overheads and the chalk board. Sometimes it looks > like he is making things up as he goes, and he makes us tell him what we > want to know. He needs to just tell us what we need to know." I was > required to attend that colleague's lectures as part of a university peer > evaluation program. He was doing a superb job of leading students to make > points for themselves, and at one point even asked students to put diagrams > on the board themselves, while he coached them through the exercise. This > was in a freshman level "honors section." But most of his time was spent in > a "chalk talk" type lecture, fairly traditional with good content. Many of > the students seemed very pleased with the process, and despite the > complaints I heard (from multiple students), my colleague received decent > student evaluation scores. > > That was several years ago, when PowerPoint was fast becoming a dominant > approach to lecturing. > > Thanks for your post. David Mc > > > On Mon, Jan 25, 2010 at 11:56 AM, Kevin Mueller wrote: > >> 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] > -- ------------- Jane Shevtsov Ecology Ph.D. candidate, University of Georgia co-founder, <www.worldbeyondborders.org> Check out my blog, <http://perceivingwholes.blogspot.com>Perceiving Wholes "The whole person must have both the humility to nurture the Earth and the pride to go to Mars." --Wyn Wachhorst, The Dream of Spaceflight
