Tag Archives: PowerPoint in the Classroom

Using PowerPoint in the Classroom

Teaching Tips & Strategies, ,
Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Image courtesy of KROMKRATHOG at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

One method of classroom instruction that has become widespread in recent years is the use of PowerPoint presentations. Using PowerPoint presentations as a tool to enhance your lectures can be beneficial to students because it can improve audience focus by breaking down and highlighting important information through a combination of text, graphics, and multimedia. Here are a few simple ways to utilize PowerPoint effectively in your class.

Use a mixture of text and images. A combination of short sentences, bullet points, graphics, and multimedia all work together to engage a variety of learning styles and effectively illustrate the concepts being taught. As a bonus, your presentation can also double as student notes. If you’d like to use this option, you can post the presentation online to be downloaded and reviewed by students anywhere, anytime, before or after class. To further engage students in the presentation, you may even include questions in the slide for them to review, either for discussion in class or as a study question for a test.

Be careful with the amount of graphics and multimedia you use in your slides. You only want to use graphics to enhance your notes, not for aesthetic purposes. Too many graphics are overwhelming will distract students from the information you are trying to teach.

Also overwhelming are slides that are too text-heavy. Use your slides as speaking notes with which to guide your lecture rather than reading directly from the slides word-for-word. Slides should not contain all of the information for the concepts you are teaching, only short talking points that introduce the concepts.

We provide ready-made PowerPoint presentations to instructors in the instructor support materials associated with our textbooks, in addition to making them accessible to students for free. Contact Labyrinth Learning today for more information about our full solutions.

Geometry Class

Effective Ways to Use PowerPoint in a College Classroom

Teaching Tips & Strategies, , ,

Geometry Class Once an office staple, PowerPoint has gained new respect in the classroom. More instructors are incorporating it into their lesson plans because lectures can quickly be updated and additional multi-media features like video, images and audio can easily be added.

Students are much more sophisticated than in the past due to rapidly changing technology. No longer are they satisfied to learn by rote. They want and expect to be challenged and engaged, therefore, when teaching with PowerPoint, it is paramount that PowerPoint lesson plans be carefully thought out.

Getting students interested in a lecture from the opening sentence can easily be achieved using a PowerPoint presentation. Including highlights of the lecture at the beginning gives students a visual aid as to what they will be learning. Building off that by asking open ended questions allow students’ prior knowledge to be gauged and lesson plans adjusted.

The body of the lecture should be broken down into short 10-15 minute segments. Often instructors get so wrapped up in what they are teaching that they forget this important tip. Remember to design a PowerPoint presentation to include active learning strategies so everyone can take a break and redirect their focus.

When teaching with PowerPoint, the conclusion is just as important as the beginning. Determine how effective the lecture was by including a slide requesting students write down what they felt was unclear or hard to understand.

For additional information on adding PowerPoint in your classroom, please contact Labyrinth Learning today.

Image Source: freedigitalphotos