![\"\"](\"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/02\/powerpoint.jpg\" "\\"powerpoint\\"")
<\/a>I have a confession to make: \u00a0I am something of a PowerPoint addict. \u00a0I have a second confession to make: \u00a0I am aware that not all of my PowerPoint presentations are as effective as I would like them to be. \u00a0Having been in the audience during many PowerPoint presentations, I know that slides with too much text are ineffective, and I also know that nothing is more boring than listening to someone read from his or her slides. \u00a0Thus, over the past few years, I have tried to make my slides more audience-friendly by reducing the amount of text that I display and increasing the number of visuals. \u00a0<\/p>\nI made those changes after doing some reading about learning styles and how the brain processes information. \u00a0Though this is a huge oversimplification, I learned that the brain processes verbal and visual information through separate channels, so if we present students with both kinds of information, we can help them improve comprehension. \u00a0 Other than in Property and Estates and Trusts, when I remember my professors diagramming future interests on the chalkboard, I don\u2019t remember having visuals in my law school classes. \u00a0(The fact that I remember those diagrams almost 15 years after my law school graduation probably says something about why I now use visuals in my classes.)<\/p>\n
An article I read recently, Legal Education in the Age of Cognitive Science and Advanced Classroom Technology, supports the idea that providing students with more visuals can enhance their learning. \u00a0In that article, Professor Deborah Merritt summarizes three \u201cbrain basics,\u201d the differences between the brain\u2019s right and left hemispheres; the limitations on working memory; and the concept of immediacy, and then explains how we can use that information about the brain to create more effective presentations. \u00a0Though the article includes ten suggestions, I\u2019m going to summarize the four that have had the most impact on my teaching.<\/p>\n
1. <\/span>\u201cUse More Images and Fewer Words\u201d<\/p>\n Images aren\u2019t limited to photographs. Images can include charts, graphs, or any other visual representation of information. \u00a0Given the often abstract nature of the lessons we try to teach, Prof. Merritt suggests using a visual to provide students an anchor or reference point as we ask them to build upon their knowledge and synthesize new information. \u00a0She suggests, for example, that when discussing Vosberg v. Putney, a battery case about one child kicking another, the professor could use a picture of a kick as a backdrop for the discussion. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n 2. <\/span>\u201cCreate Adjunct Working Memory\u201d<\/p>\n Although our long-term memory has tremendous capacity, our working memory is considerably smaller. \u00a0In fact, we can manipulate only a few pieces of new information at a time. \u00a0Thus, the complex concepts that we try to explain in the law school classroom can tax working memory, which, in turn, can impede learning. \u00a0 Professors can help students learn new information by using PowerPoint to supplement working memory. \u00a0The professor can display a few words or a visual that will help to cue the students\u2019 memories and allow them to integrate new information with material that they learned earlier. \u00a0<\/p>\n 3. <\/span>\u201cPlan Outside PowerPoint\u201d<\/p>\n This point was an important one for me. \u00a0I had a habit of relying on PowerPoint to create my in-class presentations. \u00a0In other words, I planned my class through my PowerPoint slides. That habit tended to result in slides full of text. \u00a0I think my presentations are better now that I first think about what information I want to deliver and how best to structure the conversation, and then I consider whether I can incorporate pictures or text to increase students\u2019 comprehension.<\/p>\n 4. <\/span>\u201cExtend PowerPoint Outside the Classroom\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Prof. Merritt suggests that faculty can use PowerPoint to create tutorials, problem sets, or practice exams for students. \u00a0She posits that the benefit of using PowerPoint for those tasks is that the slides can guide the students through the professor\u2019s reasoning process a step at a time. \u00a0Last year, I began using PowerPoint to create tutorials on citation, grammar, punctuation, and editing. \u00a0I created a presentation, and then I used a screen capture program to add narration over the top. \u00a0In the end, I had an audio-visual presentation that students could view outside of class. \u00a0Students have responded favorably to those presentations, which allow them to work at their own pace and to review the information once or multiple times, as they see fit.<\/p>\n For the remaining six suggestions about creating effective PowerPoint presentations and for more information about the \u201cbrain basics,\u201d I encourage you to read Prof. Merritt\u2019s entire article, which can be found at 14 B. U. J. Sci & Tech L 39 (2008).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 I have a confession to make: \u00a0I am something of a PowerPoint addict. \u00a0I have a second confession to make: \u00a0I am aware that not all of my PowerPoint presentations are as effective as I would like them to be. \u00a0Having been in the audience during many PowerPoint presentations, I know that slides with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal-education","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3628\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}