1. as an Interactive Teaching Tool By Geoffrey Cain
PowerPoint
as an
Interactive Teaching Tool
By Geoffrey Cain
At a minimum, a presentation format should do no harm to content. Yet again and again we have seen that the PP cognitive style routinely disrupts, dominates, and trivializes content. Thus PP presentations too often resemble the school play: very loud, very slow, and very simple. (Edward R. Tufte, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, 22)
Who is Tufte?
The following techniques are not meant to replace your current use of PowerPoint as an information delivery tool, slide show, etc. These techniques are meant to apply principles of interactive teaching that you probably already use in your lectures or your class activities. These slide suggestions are meant to help you prevent the computer from interfering with your teaching.

2. A Prelude
The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers. 
- Sydney J. Harris
When McLuhan said that the medium is the message, he really could be talking about Powerpoint. The medium that we choose to express our thoughts with shapes the message. Socrates objected to writing because he felt that the primary means of for the transmission of learning was speech. This model dominated learning up through Aristotle’s time.

3. The Problem Breaks thoughts up into discreet entities
Does not present the whole picture
A single tool used to solve all problems
Typically, too much information given on each slide
Overly simplifies information
Passive delivery model (creates an “audience” instead of a class)
Temptation to use distracting sounds and animation
Encourages the use of general headings instead of descriptions of real problems
Presenters tend to read off the slides and turn their backs to the “audience”
Too many bullet points – not enough information
Review the Lincoln slide.
Review the Visual Rhetoric slide.

4. Then Why Use Powerpoint?
To express the organization of thoughts; not impose an organization
To create opportunities for interactivity
To deliver multimodal learning content
Notice that this slide uses a specific topic and not just a generic heading
There are three bullet points here.
There is the metacognitive visualization strategy – the graphic reinforces the idea that what we are here to talk about is the presentation of information.

5. Opening Slides:
Take a moment to reflect on your experience of PowerPoint.
Think of a negative example and a positive example and share with your neighbor and the class.
An opening slide is an opportunity to allow students to engage prior knowledge. Students learn effectively when they make connections between what they already know (prior knowledge) and new content to which they’re exposed. The opening of a lecture can facilitate these connections by helping students exercise their prior knowledge of the day’s subject matter.
Present an “opening question” on a PowerPoint slide and give students a moment to think about their response. The instructor may then ask a few students for answers. This strategy focuses students’ attention on the day’s topic. It provides the instructor with useful feedback on what students know and don’t know about the material being presented. The opening question might be a question that informs the entire lecture -- a point that can be returned to throughout the lecture.

6. Problem-Solving Slides:
Slide contains a question and the answer
is left blank for the students to answer.
With PowerPoint, the instructor can raise a question, give an example that needs correction, present a formula, and then ask the students to solve the example. When the instructor clicks the slide again the correct answer (or a correct answer) appears. The instructor can either go on to the next problem or discuss how to arrive at the correct answer. This is also an example of a non-linear teaching technique because where the lecture goes depends upon the student feedback.
It is useful to take a look at some of the research into problem solving strategies and to try to build some of the techniques into your lectures or assignments.

7. Non-Linear PowerPoint Slides
Three categories that are best
understood together.
Related information
PowerPoint often breaks information up into little discreet bits and breaks down meaning by extracting from the whole. In other words, some kinds of knowledge lose their meaning or significance when broken up into the bite-sized chunks that PowerPoint traditionally encourages. With use of simple animations, three columns of information can be highlighted one column at a time “on click.”
You can also make a non-linear Powerpoint presentation. Build each slide to cover a different section or topic. Instead of using the slides to go from point “a” to point “b,” ask the students questions about their understanding of a topic and begin where you think it will be the most helpful to them. It is useful to ask yourself questions like “what will they not understand if they do not get this idea?”

8. Focusing Activity Slides
Think about how you might apply what you have learned today in your particular discipline.
List as many characteristics of a good lecture that you can.
Interactive learning strategies like this can be used as transition points in the lecture. Employed in this way, these strategies give students an opportunity to think about and work with material just presented before moving on to new information. They also help the instructor gauge how well students have understood the content, perhaps shaping what the instructor discusses during the remainder of the period.
Focused listing is a strategy in which students recall what they know about a subject by creating a list of terms or ideas related to it. To begin, the instructor asks students to take out a sheet of paper and begin generating a list based on a topic presented on a PowerPoint slide. Topics might relate to the day’s assigned reading, to a previous day’s lecture material, or to the subject of the current session. Instructors often move around the room and look at students’ lists as they write, briefly summarizing major trends or themes as a way of closing the exercise. Others ask students randomly to share the contents of their lists before moving on with their lecture. In either case, focused listing need not take more than a few minutes.

9. Questioning Slides: Questions?
Come up with one test question based on this lecture to stump your partner.
Asking students to come up with a question about the lecture before they leave the room encourages them to think about the material and form their own sense of closure to the lesson. The instructor should choose a couple of students at random and answer their questions in the remaining time. If collected in writing, the questions can also serve as a classroom assessment technique to help instructors judge how well their students are learning.

10. The Blank Slide
One way to gain students’ attention and to remind yourself to stop for questions is to insert a blank slide into your presentation. This is a disruption that casts the student’s full attention on the lecturer. You can go to a questioning slide, check student comprehension, and move on to the next part of your lecture. You can also use the “B” key at anytime to black out the screen when you think it is an appropriate time to bring the material off the screen and into the classroom.

11. The Game Slide Jeopardy
Some instructors object to the idea of “games” in learning. The trick here is to employ questioning strategies that appeal to more than just rote memorization. The quiz can be a short review to reinforce the objectives of the day’s lecture. Another strategy would be to take the questions from the previous week and create multiple choice questions from them. Allow the other students to answer the questions from their text or notes.

12. Mnemonic Visual Slides
Illustrations, animations, visuals, and sounds should be used sparingly and only to reinforce the lesson.
The final technique is not really a technique but an admonition to think before you use any graphic. Make sure you understand why you are using the graphic. Aesthetic reasons are often enough, but as a designer, you have another opportunity to reinforce information or create a mnemonic device for your students or yourself as a speaker. The irony here is that in the renaissance, there were handbooks on how to memorize large amounts of information. A few of those books would outline elaborate pictures that stood in for places in the mind where information could be stored. Your illustrations can do that for your lectures and in turn, help your students remember the information as well.

13. Final Thoughts…
Powerpoint is a visual medium. It is used most effectively as an aid for your students. Use dense handouts or text books, and use ppt to outline or process the information.