This article appears in The Best of the 2023 Teaching Professor Conference (Magna Publications, 2023).
All the world’s a stage—particularly your seated, online, or hybrid classroom, where slides can set the scene, provide drama, and sing backing vocals. Unfortunately, many faculty matriculated in an era when
If a visitor from another planet dropped in to observe teaching in North America (maybe other places as well), they’d likely conclude that teaching could not occur without PowerPoint slides. And they’re not just in classrooms; they’re part and parcel of all kinds of professional
We’ve all sat through some pretty horrific PowerPoint presentations. Too much text. Tiny font. Confusing graphs. Dizzying slide transitions and effects. Cheesy clip art. Poor color combinations. The list goes on and on.
But don’t blame PowerPoint just because some slide shows are bad. Blame
The recent post on PowerPoint use generated a healthy response. That’s encouraging, but blog exchanges can seem like conversations without conclusions. There is no summary, no distillation, and no set of next questions. And when there are many comments, I worry that those who respond
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