I while ago* [weeks? days? time isn't real this close to the end of term] I tweeted about how long it took me to turn my OneNote lessons into Slides/PowerPoint presentations. I was surprised by how many people were desperate to tell me just how good PowerPoint is, and give me advice on how best to use it when teaching. But the thing is, I don't want to use it. And this is why:
Our current model of working memory is essentially that of channels - there's a "words" channel (the phonological loop if we're being fancy) and there's a "pictures" channel (the visuospacial sketchpad [I know.]) [1]. Our working memory is where all the stuff around us goes before it gets sorted and stored in our long-term memory and it often gets described as a bottleneck or the eye of a needle. Basically it's kinda small compared with our long-term memory and compared with all the stuff we're trying to wedge into said long-term memory. Now the handy thing about these channels is they are pretty much independent. Where we rely only on one channel it can get gridlocked pretty easily, but if we rely on both channels we can get more stuff into the long-term memory better/more effectively. [I realise I'm using the word "stuff" a lot; forgive me; I'm exhausted]. So, words and pictures.
Well, a slide deck can do words and pictures, but there's good and then there's better.
Slide deck Option One: The Classic - plain, unanimated images, with a side of text.
Two [possibly more] problems with this:
First off, written words and spoken words take the same "route" attention-wise, so you can either read or you can listen. It's hard to do both as effectively as you could if you were only doing one. Basically students are either going to read your slide, or listen to you. Which makes one of them redundant, unfortunately.
First off, written words and spoken words take the same "route" attention-wise, so you can either read or you can listen. It's hard to do both as effectively as you could if you were only doing one. Basically students are either going to read your slide, or listen to you. Which makes one of them redundant, unfortunately.
Our second problem is with the images. If the images are all there on the slide before you start, it can be overwhelming. When presenting information, we should "reduce the amount of redundant and superfluous images and information" [4]. If we put the whole diagram up at once, some of that information will likely be "redundant and superfluous" - we haven't got to that bit of the explanation yet, it doesn't mean anything yet, it's just more stuff to try to take in. We're risking overload - either (both?) of our "channels" can become overloaded, but also we need to be aware that this stuff is new to our students, and occasionally, kinda scary-looking. [2]. The example shown opposite was one I used (drawing live) to support an explanation on bond energy calculations for year 10. If I whacked a slide up with that on, I think it's a good bet that 70% of my class would've shut down immediately. By building the diagram [or is it a model?] slowly, I provide students only with the important bits and only when they need them (nothing superfluous), and I can control The Reveal - if my students are confident I can draw more quickly, and explain faster; if they're looking a bit more baffled, I can stop after the first bit, talk about it, explain it, then move onto the next bit, pause and explain, then move on, and so on and so forth.It's also important to consider what a diagram looks like. Often a diagram in science will need talking through, or modelling, properly. Good modelling means making sure every single step is explicit [3]. We, as relative experts, can often jump ahead or skip steps that a novice, our students, can't. When we have pre-drawn diagrams on a slide those steps can become lost - we have the end product in our mind and we lose a lot of the build-up. When we live-draw our models and diagrams, it's much harder to skate over a step because the students can see what you're doing!
Okay, so if having the images already there can be an issue, why not just animate them?
Bring out Slide deck Option Two: ✨Animations✨
The problem: It takes f****** ages to animate a slide to make sure each step that you're modelling is explicit.
The image opposite was from a lesson I made recently for my department for next year. First, the two examples are shown, one at a time, so whoever is teaching can explain why X is a compound. Then we get another example. "This is also a compound because..." Then we have two non-examples, one at a time, again so whoever is teaching can explain why these are not examples of compounds. Then, because we don't want students getting confused, the non-examples disappear. Finally we have a definition. That's seven different animations. I've never timed how long it takes to animate something on Slides or PowerPoint but either way, it's unnecessary time-wastage. Animating slides is not planning. As I've blogged about before, we have a very limited time in which to plan our lessons; it's a foolish idea to spend so much of it making images appear and disappear like a low-grade magician. It's a much better use of your time to plan your explanations. What are you going to say to get the kids to understand? How are you going to say it? Whilst there isn't masses of reading out there about the value of explanations, or indeed what makes a good explanation, explanations are (or at least should be) the foundation of our teaching. How much of our precious, valuable time is being spent making slide decks when that time would be better spent planning and/or scripting explanations?
The image opposite was from a lesson I made recently for my department for next year. First, the two examples are shown, one at a time, so whoever is teaching can explain why X is a compound. Then we get another example. "This is also a compound because..." Then we have two non-examples, one at a time, again so whoever is teaching can explain why these are not examples of compounds. Then, because we don't want students getting confused, the non-examples disappear. Finally we have a definition. That's seven different animations. I've never timed how long it takes to animate something on Slides or PowerPoint but either way, it's unnecessary time-wastage. Animating slides is not planning. As I've blogged about before, we have a very limited time in which to plan our lessons; it's a foolish idea to spend so much of it making images appear and disappear like a low-grade magician. It's a much better use of your time to plan your explanations. What are you going to say to get the kids to understand? How are you going to say it? Whilst there isn't masses of reading out there about the value of explanations, or indeed what makes a good explanation, explanations are (or at least should be) the foundation of our teaching. How much of our precious, valuable time is being spent making slide decks when that time would be better spent planning and/or scripting explanations?We also have a problem with the words again. Just like before what we're saying and what we've written on our slides are taking the same road in and there's just not space for both. This leaves us with the option to (a) accept that our students are going to ignore one of us [terrible idea, don't do this] or (b) remove the words [also not a good idea]. Removing the words from our slides will almost certainly increase the cognitive load of our lessons, and not necessarily in a good way. We risk falling foul of the "transient information effect" - when loads of information is given to us verbally, we can't hold it all in our working memory, so some of it gets smushed out. This is bad. With a pre-made slide deck, we have to decide in advance what words we want on the screen, and when we want them there. Do we talk and then show them what we just said? We all know how irritating it is when you go to a presentation, they talk at you for a bit, and then they whack a slide up with almost exactly what they just said. We all sit there thinking "for goodness sake, don't waste my time". In that case, why not just give them the text straight up instead of talking? But if we do that, what's the point of us being there? When you model live, if you realise your explanation is a bit long or a bit technical, you can jot things down - important words, key sentences, whatever. (Also, because you haven't spent all your PPA animating slides you've had more time to work on getting your explanation on point!)
General problems with PowerPoint, not related to any sort of cognitive science or workload factors:
They're annoying. You get stuck in the linear trajectory dictated by what you thought was going to happen when you planned the lesson. If the class doesn't need so many examples, you end up clicking through like a madman to find the next bit; if they need more examples, you end up looking for a board pen and a board rubber and there's a class staring at you and you're rummaging in the bottom of your bag and oh now they're throwing balls of paper at each other, you get the picture. Even if you're 100% prepared to switch to the whiteboard there's always the risk the surface will be in poor condition [Boots own-brand face wipes are really good at reconditioning whiteboards] and they're never in the same place as the screen [obvs]. I've taught in classrooms where the whiteboard is on the side wall. Now, for some classes this won't be a problem, but there are definitely some classes where there's a reason that child is sat in the front row, right by your desk.
[*This post has been something I've wanted to write since then but I've been super busy that I've not had time to think properly, but yesterday I was in a Q&A session where a lot of the questions were very PowerPoint-centric and clearly that stirred something because I woke up thinking about what I wanted to say. Which was nice. Except for the fact that it was 4:45am. I think I'm about 80% energy drink, 20% coffee right now.]
1. A. Baddeley, Exploring Working Memory: Selected Works of Alan Baddeley, Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge, 2012
2. J. W. Paul, J. Seniuk Cicek, The Cognitive Science of PowerPoint, University of Manitoba, 2021
3. P. Raichura, Building Understanding in The Early Career Framework Handbook (TECFH)
4. A. Tharby, Talk in the Classroom in TECFH