SLIDES FOR STUDENTS The Effective Use of Powerpoint in Education GARY D. FISK SLIDES FOR STUDENTS The Effective Use of Powerpoint in Education GARY D. FISK Blue Ridge | Cumming | Dahlonega | Gainesville | Oconee Copyright © 2019 by Gary D. Fisk All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher, except by reviewers who may quote brief excerpts in connections with a review in newspaper, magazine, or electronic publications; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or other, without the written permission from the publisher. Published by: University of North Georgia Press Dahlonega, Georgia Printing Support by: Lightning Source Inc. La Vergne, Tennessee Book design by Corey Parson. ISBN: 978-1-940771-43-4 Printed in the United States of America For more information, please visit: http://ung.edu/university-press Or e-mail: [email protected] CONTENTS 0 Introduction vii 1 Presentation Software 1 2 Powerpointlessness 14 3 Educational Effectiveness and Student Perceptions 32 4 Avoiding Death by Powerpoint 53 5 Design for Emotion I 67 6 Design for Emotion II 84 7 Design for Sensation 100 8 Design for Perception I 117 9 Design for Perception II 135 10 Design for Attention 156 11 Design for Cognition I 170 12 Design for Cognition II 190 13 Design for Behavior 213 14 Technology Choices 232 15 Tips and Tricks for Slide Presentations 247 16 A Classroom Presentation Example 264 17 The Bright Future of Powerpoint in Education 292 A Appendix A 307 B Appendix B 310 C Appendix C 314 0 INTRODUCTION The creative spark that motivated this book was the observation that powerpoint presentations sometimes fail to produce a positive impact on student learning. There seems to be a strange, somewhat curious disconnect between an amazing technology and a mediocre or poor student learning experience. Discussions with other college faculty reinforced the idea that powerpoint presentations often fall short of expectations in the classroom. The initial curiosity about this disconnection became a personal journey to learn more about presentation technology and how it was used—or misused—in the classroom. My overall conclusion is that powerpoint presentations are often used in ineffective ways. This is not entirely the fault of the technology. Rather, the main problem lies in how humans use the technology. If we want to unleash the full potential of powerpoint presentations, we must viii | Slides for Students do a better job of creating presentations that fit the educational needs of our students. My exploration of the use of powerpoint in education suggested a need for definitive guidelines that would inform educators about the best practices for its use. Many educators have written specific studies of powerpoint in the classroom, but clear-cut recommendations based on this evidence were missing. The present book addresses this need by synthesizing information across psychological research areas, such as sensation, cognition, and behavior. Other evidence comes from classroom-based studies conducted by educational professionals across a wide range of academic disciplines. A third body of evidence was the recommendations made by professional designers who aim to improve the quality of powerpoint presentations. The present book was synthesized from these widely varied sources into recommendations that should help education professionals connect with their students and get better learning outcomes from their powerpoint presentations. This book is not meant to be a software manual or a how- to guide for using a particular software application. Many such books are available for Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote software applications. Instead, this book’s emphasis is on the design of educational presentations. The ideas behind these design concepts focus on general principles of human learning rather than a specific technology, so these ideas should work well for any particular kind of presentation software. Another feature that sets this book apart is the emphasis on an evidenced-based, scientific approach. This evidence focus leads to a substantively different way of designing presentations, one that provides a true Introduction | ix educational benefit rather than emphasizing the construction of pretty slides. A small but important challenge in the writing of this book was how to handle the term “PowerPoint.” At first, it seemed best to avoid using this term because it represents a proprietary product that is trademarked by the Microsoft Corporation. On the other hand, my attempts to write about presentations without using the term “PowerPoint” resulted in awkward writing. The heart of the issue is that the term “PowerPoint” has taken on multiple meanings and, therefore, can be used in more than one manner. Hubert Knoblauch, a sociologist who studies PowerPoint as a cultural phenomenon, suggests an elegant way to delicately treat this ambiguous term (Knoblauch, 2012, p. 3). He uses “PowerPoint” (note the capitalization) to refer specifically to the Microsoft Office software application. This capitalization is appropriate given that Microsoft’s PowerPoint software is a proper noun. In contrast, the term “powerpoint” (all lower case) is used to describe a modern presentation style that is characterized by some form of multimedia supplement to the speaker’s voice. This broad use of the term can refer generically to many modern presentations, regardless of the technology that was used. This book will follow Knoblauch’s suggested usage of these terms to make this important distinction between a specific software product (PowerPoint) and the more general uses of multimedia to support presentations (powerpoint). The writing of this book was a large and somewhat audacious project that was supported by many people. In particular, I thank Ellen Cotter, my wife, for her support of this project and her great proofreading skills. This book would not have been possible without her. From my department, I thank Jamie MacLennan for x | Slides for Students giving feedback on the manuscript and Chuck Huffman for his support of this scholarly activity. More broadly, I would like to thank the faculty of Georgia Southwestern State University (GSW) for their encouragement and enthusiasm. These GSW colleagues reinforced my initial impressions that powerpoint presentations can be problematic and are worthy of greater scientific attention. My colleagues also suggested numerous ideas that have been incorporated into this book. The Interlibrary Loan librarians at GSW were instrumental for obtaining the numerous articles that formed the basis of this book. Their support is greatly appreciated. I thank Stephen Snyder, Director of University Relations at GSW, for taking high-quality pictures of the powerpoint displays in the classroom. Finally, I would like to thank the University of North Georgia Press for believing in the vision of this book and the potential benefit that it might have for educational professionals. I thank the editors and peer-reviewers for their work, which greatly strengthened the book. 1 PRESENTATION SOFTWARE The Revolution and the Dilemma The PowerPoint program is like the weather: Everyone likes to complain about it but nobody does anything about it. (Kosslyn, 2007) Picture the following scenario: A modern college class begins with an introductory title slide that displays a topic title and a few bullet points. The class begins with a warm greeting from the professor, who then walks the classroom of 200 students through a progression of twenty-five slides. The presentation is very orderly, with the slides being delivered in a carefully-planned sequence. Each slide has a neat hierarchy of information laid out in a bullet point list. A few slides have graphs or diagrams that support an important idea. Once in a while, a student asks a question. At the end, the professor shows a conclusion slide and asks the class 2 | Slides for Students if there are any further questions. One student asks a question, which the professor answers. The class is dismissed. Now, consider your reaction to this scenario. It’s likely that your initial response is that this imaginary class sounds a bit dull. This scenario fits our modern standards for education, but it doesn’t seem to be dynamic or student-centered. It describes a rather passive approach to learning that places too much emphasis on the slide show. Somewhat mysteriously, the state of the art powerpoint technology has led to a mediocre educational experience. This humdrum result occurred even though the professor had good intentions and put a significant effort into giving the students a first-rate education. The above scenario, with some slight variations, is repeated in university and K12 educational settings numerous times each day all over the world. Of course, the exact number of educational presentations is not precisely known, but the number must be rather high. Microsoft once estimated that 300 million PowerPoint presentations of all kinds are given daily (I. Parker, 2001). Another estimate is that 350 powerpoint presentations are being given each second (Parks, 2012). These high numbers illustrate the importance of powerpoint presentations in modern culture. Slide presentations are found in business, education, government, and the sciences. Even churches have adopted this technology to assist worshippers during church services. The ubiquity of powerpoint presentations shows that powerpoint is taking a central role in everyday modern life (Knoblauch, 2012). The current cultural standard is that every presentation must include a slide show. For educators, the classroom experience often focuses on the slide deck (an antiquated term for a Presentation Software | 3 powerpoint presentation), which makes powerpoint the center of the modern classroom. A Brief History of Visual Presentation Aids The use of visual aids to supplement presentations emerged in the early part of the twentieth century as a movement towards making business management more scientific.