Death by powerpoint
Being in the military for 10 years a common form of instruction was lecture with power point as an aid. These classes we ineffective at getting the knowledge needed due to long classes, cluttered slides and a "check in the box" mentality. The instructor teaching the class was often ordered to do so and often was unmotivated therefore reading off the slide in a monotone voice with his back to the class. These classes would go on for hours and once a year, several days are set aside for these periods of instruction which last all day. This resulted in the students becoming more interested in doing literally ANYTHING rather than sit through another minute of the material being presented. Most of what I got out of the classes was learning to spot others sleeping with eyes open. I take this lecture method with the previously described methods of delivery as a perfect example of what not to do
Peter,
Yep...death by PPT! I regard PPT slides as a tool with a specific purpose. I try to only use the right tool for the job at hand. Sometimes I'll have only one slide because that's all I need.
Barry Westling
Since we have many prior service members in our school, I try to stay away from Power Point and rely much more heavily on active learning, such as group projects and having students write on the board. I believe these methods lead to higher levels of retention in all students and prevent the prior service members from shutting out the material before it is even presented.
Malinda,
Good tactic. Group activities and projects are better learning methods anyway.
Barry Westling
