When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom
Thursday, November 19th, 2009There’s an article worth reading on The Chronicle of Higher Education’s web site. It’s titled “When Computers Leave Classrooms, So Does Boredom.”
It isn’t a rant against the use of PowerPoint in teaching, but it does try to get teachers away from an over-reliance on it. The article extensively cites the thoughts of José A. Bowen, a dean at Southern Methodist University. Here’s a brief summary of his approach:
More than any thing else, Mr. Bowen wants to discourage professors from using PowerPoint, because they often lean on the slide-display program as a crutch rather than using it as a creative tool. Class time should be reserved for discussion, he contends, especially now that students can download lectures online and find libraries of information on the Web. When students reflect on their college years later in life, they’re going to remember challenging debates and talks with their professors. Lively interactions are what teaching is all about, he says, but those give-and-takes are discouraged by preset collections of slides.
Later in the article there are examples of how to use PowerPoint not at a “crutch” but as a “creative tool.”
You can watch an interview of Bowen here.
Bowen makes an implicit distinction between learning information (through lectures aided by PowerPoint and other means) and learning how to think (through discussions, interaction, and active participation). It’s a distinction that every presenter should keep in mind.
Sometimes a presentation is all about presenting information. You just want your audience to know something — a new procedure or policy, the latest test results, the status of a project. And sometimes you want them to learn how to think — how to conduct an experiment, how to analyze data, how to select the best option.
You have to determine your goal — do you want to communicate information or help people think – before selecting the tools and methodology you use.
