Michael Alley

Pilot testing of a new design for presentation slides to teach science and engineering

Pilot testing in a large geology course shows that a new sentence-headline design of presentation slides was more effective than the traditional phrase-headline design at teaching science to undergraduates. Rather than having a phrase headline supported by a bullet list, the new design relies on a succinct sentence headline supported by visual evidence. In the new design, bullets are not used. The testing of the new slide design involved comparing test scores between a prior section that viewed the traditional design and the test scores of a current section that viewed the new design. On 7 of the 20 questions, the section viewing the new design achieved improvements in test scores that were statistically significant at the 99.9% confidence level. On no question did the prior section viewing the traditional design achieve a higher test score that was statistically significant. The mean test scores on the 20 questions were 71% correct for the earlier group (traditional design) and 82% correct for the latter group (new design). In addition to analyzing the test scores, we conducted surveys that indicate the students preferred the new design over the traditional design by a more than 7-to 1 ratio. These test scores and survey results have implications in the way that presentation slides should be designed not only for science and engineering classrooms, but also for forums of scientific and engineering research

Increased Student Learning and Attendance in Resources Geology through the Combination of Sentence-Headline Slides and Active Learning Measures

This study assessed how combining active learning measures with teaching slides that relied on sentence headlines affected test scores and attendance in a large resources geology course. For all six sections of the course, the following remained the same: instructor, classroom, semester time slot, and number of teaching slides. For two sections, though, we transformed the existing teaching slides that followed the traditional design of a phrase headline supported by a bulleted list (and often an image) to a sentence-headline design supported by visual evidence. In this new design, the sentence headline stated the main assertion of the slide. To increase active participation, we posted these sentence-headline slides as fill-in-the-blank notes, as opposed to complete slides as posted for the other sections. To increase attendance in these two sections, we administered a graded activity in each class period. These two sections had statistically significant increases (p < 0.001) in both class attendance and test scores on identical questions.

Rethinking the Design of Presentation Slides: Creating Slides That Are Readily Comprehended

Presentation slides, when designed well, can significantly increase the amount of information that the audience comprehends. However, when the slide has type that can not be quickly read, the audience often gives up on the slide. Moreover, when the slide does not orient well, when the slide has too much information, or when the order of information on the slide is unclear, the audience can easily become confused. Given that these mistakes can prevent the audience from comprehending the presentation’s content, presenters should strive to format slides that can be quickly read, that effectively orient, that have a reasonable amount of information, and that have a clear order of information. Unfortunately, the slide formats that many engineering presenters use do not meet these goals. Presented in this paper are recommendations for the format of presentation slides—specifically, the typography, color, and layout of presentation slides (or overheads). An assumption for these recommendations is that the purpose of the presentation is to communicate technical information efficiently to the audience. Given that assumption, the goal of a slide’s typography is to have type that can be read as quickly as possible. To obtain that goal, this paper recommends a bold sans serif typestyle such as Arial that is at least 18 points. In regard to color, the most important goal is to have colors that can be clearly distinguished from each other. To obtain that goal, this paper recommends either a dark color against a light background or a light color against a dark background. In regard to layout, the goal is to have a slide design for which the audience can quickly discern the point of the slide and then can divide attention between the presenter and the slide as the presenter discusses the slide. To obtain that goal, this paper recommends the national laboratory design of a short sentence headline supported primarily by images. Other reasons exist for choosing this national lab design. Although this paper focuses on how readily that slides following this national lab design can be comprehended, the paper does direct the reader to references that discuss two other reasons for using this national laboratory design: (1) how well the slide design helps the audience remember details, and (2) how persuasive the slide design is.Copyright

Improving Student Learning in Large Classes by Incorporating Active Learning with a New Design of Teaching Slides

Tests have shown that using teaching slides with sentence headlines supported by visual evidence can significantly improve the transfer and retention of knowledge in large classes. However, some students will not attend class because these slides, when posted as notes, serve as a strong summary of the class. This paper presents the testing of active learning measures incorporated with this new slide design in a large geosciences course. One course section learned from the traditional slides, while a second learned from the new slides with active learning strategies. These strategies, which were fill-in-the-blank notes and a graded in-class activity, were used to encourage attendance. The same instructor taught both sections, in the same classroom, at the same semester time slot. The only differences for the second section included the new slides, the active learning measures, and a larger class size. An exam at the end of six classes revealed that the average score for the traditional slides was 66% correct, while the average score for the new slides with active learning was 71% on sixteen identical questions - a statistically significant increase (p les 0.01). Additionally, the new slides with active learning led to statistically significant (p les 0.001) increases in attendance

Workshop - rethinking the design of presentation slides

This workshop challenges the traditional design of presentation slides. Consisting of a phrase headline supported by a bullet list, the traditional design often appears in classroom and research presentations. In place of the traditional design, this workshop calls for a new design that consists of a succinct sentence headline supported by visual evidence. A pilot study has revealed that students understand and remember significantly more when the instructor relies on this new design as opposed to the traditional design. Using a template that follows the new design, workshop participants create a small set of teaching or research slides. Following that in the workshop is a peer-critique of these slides. In the past three years, this workshop has been well received at several distinguished agencies and institutions: the Environmental Protection Agency, Los Alamos National Laboratory, United Technologies, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Oslo, and Virginia Tech

RETHINKING THE DESIGN OF PRESENTATION SLIDES: THE IMPORTANCE OF WRITING SENTENCE HEADLINES

Presentation slides are often used for teaching engineering classes, presenting engineering research, and explaining engineering designs. For those presentations in which the presenter desires to communicate and defend results, using a succinct sentence headline for all slides but the title slide has three advantages over relying on a phrase headline. The first is that a sentence headline not only can identify the topic, but also can state an assertion about the topic. Emphasizing the assertions in an engineering presentation is advantageous, because audiences are more inclined to believe an argument if they realize the assertions and sub-assertions. Also, for a presentation that serves as a classroom assignment, having the student write sentence headlines provides a written record for the faculty member of that student’s assertions in the presentation. A second advantage of using sentence headlines, rather than phrase headlines, is that a sentence headline can clarify much more effectively the role of the slide in the presentation. Such a clarification not only helps the audience during the presentation, but also serves the audience reviewing the slides days or weeks later. Yet a third advantage, and perhaps the most important, is that a sentence headline forces the presenter to come to grips with the main purpose of each slide. If the presenter cannot create a sentence headline that states the slide’s main purpose in the presentation, then the presenter should consider cutting that slide from the presentation. For engineering presenters who have used this design, the result has been that significantly fewer slides are presented, thus helping the presenters avoid a frenetic pace, which undermines so many engineering presentations. This paper uses several examples from the Mechanical Engineering Department at Virginia Tech to show these three advantages. The paper also analyzes why faculty and students are reluctant to use sentence headlines. Finally, the paper includes a preliminary assessment on the effectiveness of these sentence headlines in engineering presentations.

PowerPoint in the Psychology Classroom: lessons from multimedia learning research

Teaching in higher education often involves giving a lecture that is accompanied by PowerPoint slides. It is common practice for slides to adhere closely to PowerPoints defaults, but these and other similar designs violate principles of multimedia learning. In this article, the psychological theories that apply to slide comprehension processes are described, with an explanation as to how ‘common-practice’ slides do not incorporate recommendations that arise from them. The authors identify ways in which an alternative structure, called the Assertion-Evidence (A-E) slide structure, better embodies these principles. They present introductory steps for instructors who are interested in redesigning their slides. Figures are used to illustrate both common-practice and A-E slide structures.

Improving Retention of Information from Teaching Slides

The purpose of this study was to test a new slide design in a computer science course. Slides in the new design have a sentence headline supported by visual evidence, as opposed to the traditional design of a phrase headline supported by a bulleted list and sometimes an image. Identical content was presented to two sections of students. Each group viewed three presentations. For the first two topics, one section was taught with sentence/visual slides and the other with phrase/bullets slides. The last presentation was a control; both sections viewed traditional slides. To test how much information was transferred and retained by the two sets of students, identical closed-book quizzes were administered at the end of each teaching session. Students who viewed slides in the new design performed better on the quizzes than students who viewed traditional slides. Educators should consider adopting this new design for their slides

Editing: The Big Picture

The way that a document is drafted and edited varies greatly not only from institution to institution, but also from document to document within the same institution. For short documents, the drafting is often done by a single writer who has expertise on the subject. After that writer drafts the document, the document proceeds through an editing chain, which may be in series or in parallel. Many institutions, for example, have a simple sign-off chain: author to first-level manager to second-level manager and so on. In such a series chain, the author usually makes all the changes at one level before the document proceeds to the next. Once all have signed the document, the document is published.

Critical Error 8 Following the Common Practices of PowerPoint Talks

The way that we as engineers and scientists design presentation slides is naturally evolving. When a presenter comes up with a new slide design that succeeds in a talk, those of us in the audience consider adoption. However, this natural evolution of effective slide designs in engineering and science has been painfully slow. One reason, as slide designer Cliff Atkinson asserts, is that PowerPoints’s defaults “are deeply entrenched.