pictures of topic related comnponents
In the automotive technical wducation environment i have foudn that if i lavbel every part we have out for viewing the students learn the component name and what the part looks like.
To help my students learn the important points within a PowerPoint, I have color coated certain words, phrases, and /or sentences in a specific color to tell the student that this particular information is very important to remember (hint towards testing) and that is needed as a practitioner. Other colors are used to brighten up the slide; other colors are to help the student focus on specific words or phrases that should jump off the page as a focal point. The uses of colors are great but there should still be consistency between slides and have a theme. To many different colors becomes distracting and can make the presentation look junky, thrown together, and even a hint of poor color coordination. For the pictures, I repeat the famous words, “a picture is worth a thousand wordsâ€. People can understand text content when a picture is relevant and provides clarity. I have used actual pictures of real life suicides, murders, and accidental deaths for descriptive purposes of what I want the student to learn and see firsthand. The problem with using pictures is the amount of time one has to use to find pictures that help explain the lecture/text/discussion. The internet can waste a lot of the instructor’s time trying to convey the lesson for the day.
Richard,
yes, this is a great idea & we use to do that in my corporate training programs so this way the participants can check their progress throughout the week.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
We teach week-long planning and resource allocation processes using a combination of lecture and simulations. I have found that having posters on the wall of the overall process flow, and adding the detailed steps before teaching each step of a process, gives the students a "touchstone" to refer to, especially the visual learners. They also have the same process diagrams in their student handbooks to scribble notes on and have as a job aid when after the course. The process diagrams become "hand-rails" for the students.
Unfortunately I’m not allowed to modify my power points. What I do is before I turn on the projector, I walk around the room passing around some of the items that will be in the discussion as well as using the poster’s I have on the walls. Then as I go through the power point, I can hold up the part or refer back to the poster for reinforcement.
I also like to incorporate pictures into my slide presentations, rather than me trying to explain the topic, I can show a picture of a part or procedure. I feel making it visual it may be easier for the students to understand and retain.
I completely agree with adding to the sometimes drab and lifeless powerpoints that are given to us as teacher resources. From a marketing class perspective, there are some strategies that are best illustrated by inserting real life marketing examples within the powerpoint slides. It allows us to provide the students with both the theory behind certain marketing strategies and then show how it is actually executed. It is always fun afterwards to allow the students to apply their own ingenuity by having them create their own marketing materials based off what they have learned and the examples that they have seen.
Patricai,
this is a great idea & glad you were able to take that ownership. There really is much we can do to liven things up.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
When I first started teaching the PPT's I was given had very little color or pictures. As a suggestion from the students, I started editing my power points with more color and lots of pictures so they could not only understand what I was talking about they could see what it looked like.
Carroll,
this is a great idea as then they can remember the names as they read them & work with the part so it helps cement that name in their minds.
Ryan Meers, Ph.D.
