Handling presentation slides and OHTs

PowerPoint ^TM and OHT presentations often dominate the lecture, and in darkened theatres, students can become inattentive or sleepy, especially if they have been up late pre-reading or writing an assignment. Too many slides undermine what should be the primacy of the spoken word.

• In composing your presentations, keep them simple. Pay attention to font-size and colour contrast to optimize legibility. Avoid the temptation to put too much information into one slide.
• If at all possible, preview your slides and/or OHTs in the teaching space you are going to use, to be confident that they will be fully legible from all parts of the room, even to short-sighted students who will insist on sitting up the back.
• Use your slides to support your lecture, not to supplant it. Students do not appreciate lecturers who do little more than read out what is on the screen.
• If you need to present complex or detailed slides/OHTs, avoid speaking over them – instead, pause, and then comment.
• Take advantage of the basic animation features of your presentation software to encourage a 'write-listen-write-listen' approach by gradually revealing items as they are discussed. Use equivalent techniques on your transparencies if you are using an OHP. ( Mulligan and Kirkpatrick (2000), p.335; cf. Gibbs et al. (1992), pp. 69-71: "Progressive structuring".)
• Mulligan and Kirkpatrick recommend using "mixed delivery modes, introducing variety to the lecture (slides, OHTs, board-work, commentary; OHTs, board, commentary with no visuals, lecturer/student discussions, students complet[ing] short activities)" (p.334).
• "commentary with no visuals": If you are fluent in the use of the electronic touchpad on your lectern, turning off all A/V projections (+/- raising the houselights), even just for a few minutes, can be a very effective way of emphasising an important point; also of framing a student activity, which you can terminate by (dropping the houselights and) resuming the projected presentation.
• If you are technologically adventurous, you might want to explore the University of Washington's Classroom Presenter , which makes it possible to write on your PowerPoint slides as you would on an OHT or on a whiteboard. For a description of this, see Richard Anderson's article Beyond PowerPoint: Building a New Classroom Presenter in Campus Technology .