A visit to a science classroom today might prompt a
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1. 2005 Atlanta GA www asm org Human Anatomy and Physiology Society HAPS May 28 June 1 2005 St Louis MO www hapsweb org 230th American Chemical Society ACS August 28 September 1 2005 Washington DC www chemistry org Newsletter Editor Cindy Johnson Director of Marketing Stacy Treco Creative Director Lillian Carr Editorial Director Frank Ruggirello Publisher Daryl Fox Sponsoring Editors Serina Beauparlant Leslie Berriman Chalon Bridges Jim Smith Beth Wilbur and Susan Winslow Lauren Harp Scott Dustan and Jeff Hester Marketing Managers PRESORTED STANDARD U S POSTAGE PAID SAN FRANCISCO CA PERMIT No 5712. re not going to use it anymore because it is so easy for it to become the focus of the classroom experience rather than the support for good teaching active learning and critical thinking that it should be and can be But then to paraphrase Al Pacino in The Godfather Just when you think you re out PowerPoint pulls you back in So if like us you are already a PowerPoint addict we suggest following our instruc tions for minimizing the dangers If you are considering adopting PowerPoint make sure that it is for the right reasons If on the other hand you feel that you ought to use PowerPoint because all your colleagues are or your Dean wants you to be more tech savvy we rec ommend that you introduce Personal Response Systems aka clickers into your classroom instead In our experience clickers involve a bit more investment in start up time and they have more technical problems but they can significantly increase the quality of learning in your classroom Clickers are evil got only one Google hit the minutes of a fraternity meeting W Editor s Note The author would like to thank MerriLynn Casem Bill Hoese Judy Kandel Elaine McClanahan and Joyce Ono for their contributions to this article FRESHEN LECTURES BY CONNECTING UNRELATED CONCEPTS David Eakin Eastern Kentucky University david eakin eku edu For most students the concept of lively lectures is as meaningful as the thunderous s
3. file itself to the software program to your computer to your computer s interface with the projection system to the projection system there is many a slip between cup and lip You never run out of chalk the worst thing that happens with an overhead projector is that a bulb burns out but everyone has experienced the blue screen of death The standard recommendation is to have overhead transparencies to back up your PowerPoint slides We don t do this because we are often updating our PowerPoint presenta tions minutes before class time It also feels wasteful What we do is print out a copy of our presentation in Notes format Since we try not to design lectures that are too dependent on visuals this has worked for us You can amuse students by saying as Eric Simon of New England College does Today you get teaching UNPLUGGED If you don t understand this refer ence ask your students Before classes begin you should do a couple of trial runs in your assigned class room so you don t hysterically call in tech support when you have plugged in your laptop to the wrong out let or something similarly embarrassing Always be nice a ae x to your tech support because you never know when you will need them Incidentally students are very unforgiving of these technical glitches and this will show up on your evaluations even if it isn t your fault It is very easy to include too much material i
4. see how common PowerPoint bashing is do a Web search using that other ubiquitous program Google A recent search for PowerPoint yielded 17 000 000 hits A search for PowerPoint is evil got 4 870 hits PowerPoint is good got only 438 The most well known and possibly most thoughtful critique of PowerPoint is a 28 page essay by Edward Tufte a professor emeritus from Yale whose specialty is information design available for 7 from his Web site www edwardtufte com or amazon com Entitled Zhe Cognitive Style of PowerPoint its basic argument is that PowerPoint oversimplifies emphasizes form over con tent and creates passive audiences On the flip side are arguments that PowerPoint is just a tool a tool that can be used well or poorly depending on the skill of the user Our experience is somewhere in between We pre fer to think of PowerPoint as a lesser demon useful if carefully controlled and constantly monitored but capa ble of taking over a classroom and destroying active learning and critical thinking We will start with what is good about PowerPoint and how PowerPoint can con tribute to learning in your classroom PowerPoint Friend PowerPoint can help you make your lectures more organized and easier for students to follow If you tend to go off topic easily PowerPoint s built in structure can help you stay on track If you have trouble gauging how much content you will be able to covet a few weeks of u
5. sites also provide search engines that can find song titles or artist names containing relevant keywords try entering cell into the iTunes search engine for a lot of interesting band names While popular music is unlikely to impart content knowledge to your students it can help grab and retain their attention show the relevancy of the subject matter to the world around them and perhaps even cause them to engage the subject matter outside the classroom Among introductory students such small victories can be significant Hi Editor s Note Eric Simon is co author of Essential Biology Second Edition Benjamin Cummings 2004 and Biology Concepts and Connections Fifth Edition Benjamin Cummings 2006 Powerpoint FRIEND OR FOE Anne Houtman and Melissa Presch California State University Fullerton ahoutman fullerton edu and mpresch fullerton edu We haven t met anyone who uses PowerPoint and doesn t feel ambivalent about it except maybe our pre teen daughter and niece who use it to make presenta tions like What I Would Really Like for My Birthday this Year or Why I Should Be Allowed to Wear Makeup to School complete with explanatory visuals and bullet point justifications Does PowerPoint contribute to student learning or does it make our students passive and lazy You can find arguments on both sides although in the last two years it has been more common to hear criticism than praise If you want to
6. student The student will choose any term from the board define or identify it in some way and if it is correct cross out that term The student then picks another to pass the chalk and the game continues Janet Gaston Troy University In THE NEWS Many instructors find that students are more engaged in learning about science when the course material is related to current events In our next CURRENT EVENTS issue we ll share ideas on this topic and your responses to the question How do you incorporate current events into your life science or chemistry course Sound Off entries will be entered in a random draw ing to receive a 100 American Express gift certificate To enter please send an e mail to strategies aw com or fax your response to 978 465 6658 by August 1 2005 Tue ONGOING LEGACY OF NEIL ALLISON CAMPBELL 1946 2004 Neil A Campbell 58 devoted husband father brother gifted educator and world renowned author passed away from complications following a heart attack on October 21 2004 Dr Campbell was a source of inspiration for many and all of us at Benjamin Cummings are better for having worked lived and laughed with him Ever the visionary Dr Campbell leaves behind a rich legacy of scholarship and an immeasurable contribu tion to the education of millions of students of biology at the high school and college levels Now his work will be carried forth by his team of dedicated co authors a
7. 8053 8728 5 To order a copy please visit www aw bc com 2 fo wv Poputar MUSIC CAN ENLIVEN YOUR CLASSROOM Eric J Simon New England College esimon nec edu No subject in the science curriculum intersects with today s popular culture more than biology As teachers we can take advantage of the current golden age of biology by emphasizing the myriad ways that curricular content relates to students lives outside the classroom Biology abounds in movies travel to the Galapagos Islands with Russell Crowe in Master and Commander ot consider a near future society where genetic makeup determines social status in GAT7ACA television shows CSI reigns as the most popular show in America and medical themed shows can be seen nightly on the Discovery Channel and music Most students today are popular culture sponges it is what they think about dur ing their free time By making references to these media we can remind our students that biology exists outside the four classroom walls We can also entertain and enliven the teaching learning environment benefits of particular importance in the non majors introductory course where gaining and holding students attention can be half the battle One easy way to bring popular culture into the classroom is to play music before class In my introduc tory courses one for science majors and one for non science majors I play a song relevant to each day s les son before th
8. assroom response systems as well as the pros and cons of one of the most established PowerPoint You ll also find ideas for using popular culture to connect your students to the lec ture and a way of thinking about your lecture topics to keep them fresh and thought provoking The importance of this topic is also reflected in the many and varied responses we received to last issue s Sound Off question Check out what our readers had to say about lively lectures on page 7 and send us your answer to the new question for our fall issue see page 8 We are deeply grateful to our contributors and to those of you who sound off for making this newsletter possible It is a sincere pleasure to report on such dedication to the art and craft of lecturing and to bring you the fruits of your colleagues efforts May this issue help you make your lectures as enjoyable and informative as they can be But THERE WEREN T ANY HOLE PROBLEMS ON THE HOMEWORK Douglas Duncan University of Colorado dduncan origins Colorado edu Are you satisfied with how your class is going Are the students as enthusiastic as you would like them to be Are they learning material in the depth you expect and can they apply what you ve taught them in situations different from those discussed in class or those met in real life You may not know the answer to the last question A physicist tells of spending consider able class time teaching about gravity moti
9. d Orange Glo Carnetta Skipworth Western Kentucky University I include a variety of special topics of relevance to Chattanooga students by introducing them with a photo in a PowerPoint teaser slide which I then incorporate into the day s topic I also use a number of props and demonstrations Richard Clements University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Collect short video clips humorous and less than two minutes and show them at the beginning of lecture to get their attention or at the end to keep them expect ing the next class The Internet is a good source for clips but check for copyright restrictions Edna Steele Converse College I incorporate forensic technology applications into lec ture I adapt a forensic anthropology technique to teach bones and markings Lynda Leppert The University of Memphis When discussing resonance structures in organic chem istry I stress the that the actual structure is an average of the resonance structures I give the analogy of a mule being an average of a horse and donkey A male doesn t switch back and forth between donkey horse donkey horse The students find this analogy humorous Susan F Hornbuckle Clayton College amp State University I play Pass the Chalk I write a list of terms on the chalkboard or overhead transparency I pick a number and go to the gradebook to find the student s name by that number then pass the chalk to that
10. e period starts I then ask the same set of questions Who can name the song and artist Why am I playing this particular song today Students enjoy the brain teaser of making the connection between the song and the subject under discussion As a teacher it is always gratifying to realize that students are thinking about the course material before the opening bell This technique also allows you to create a loose interactive atmosphere without sacrificing any actual class time During my lecture I add the song at half volume to the PowerPoint slide that most closely relates to the song s significance The recurrence of the song can pro vide an Aha moment for students and some have said that the aural connection helps them remember the topic There are popular songs that intersect often ftivo lously with almost every topic in the introductory biol ogy curriculum either through the song title the con tent of the song or the name of the artist Some are fairly obvious Do the Evolution by Pearl Jam others require a bit more thought More Than Words by Extreme used when discussing archaea and a few induce groans I ve Got You Under My Skin by Frank ae S a Sinatra when discussing anatomy or Tiny Bubbles by Don Ho when discussing protists Here are a few more e Introduction to Science She Blinded Me With Science Thomas Dolby Weird Science Oingo Boingo The Sound
11. everyone else answered The simple use of clickers turns the passive lecture experience into an active one When students take part they become much more involved and usually more enthusiastic If you use some imagination in the kind of questions you pose and Benjamin Cummings is work ing hard to compile good questions for all science fields student involvement can become quite lively For instance every once in a while I pose a question with no right answer An example in astronomy is the current search for life in the universe Suppose that we hear sig nals someday from intelligent life Should we a answer it is an amazing opportunity to learn b don t answer what if they weren t friendly c just listen they are probably so much more advanced than us that they might consider us to be like insects or some lower form of life In subjects like biology genetics the environ ment there are many open ended questions If your goal is to increase student participation clickers are wonderful tools In this case it behooves you to reward wrong answers as well as right Clicker systems let you decide how to grade I give two points for a right answer and one point for a wrong one Two points if the question has no definite right answer It is also essential for you to describe why you are using clickers and what your expectations are Research I conducted at the University of Chicago described in Appendix 2 of Clhcke
12. ilence we experience at the end of most lectures It is an oxymoron Unfortu nately some instructors still approach the act of teach ing using the Middle English concept of lecture the act of reading Worse are those who have adopted x Ag A x Webster s second definition a lengthy rebuke or scold ing We fare no better when we investigate the syn onyms for the word lively and there are many vig orous full of spirit marked by animated intelligence invigorating refreshing sparkling effervescent dynamic full of life and energy Need I continue Each of these words suggests the single ominous antonym for the word namely DULL Following my own advice to communicators I will address my remarks to the audience for whom this newsletter is written those who are willing to work to become better at their craft When I die dull as a doot knob would not be my preferred epitaph And while technology has added the possibility of innovation and freshness to the classroom a bad teacher will be a bad teacher whether they have a piece of chalk or a laser pointer in their hand I will use Darwin s Concept of Natural Selection to illus trate one way to freshen your lectures We all know what needs to be presented and even how and where it is covered in our text But sometimes a change of place and context will add a refreshing element of interest to our presentations Why not put this essential c
13. longer versions of the responses visit www aw bc com events strategies I invite two guest speakers from the community to speak on a topic which relates to the current material For example after we covered the skeletal system the Director of Emergency Services for Erlanger Hospital and the Emergency Medical Services staff came in and talked about fractures Jane Wallace University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Magic is a hobby of mine and chemical magic can easily be used to supplement lectures Non chemical magic tricks can also be adapted to chemical topics on occa sion Contact a local magic shop or magic organization in your area for ideas Jim Braun Clayton College amp State University I sometimes have students get in groups and review the material by being creative creating games contests etc One group last week based their game on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and one of the lifelines was consult the teacher They reviewed the concepts very well Kaki Bates Chattanooga State Technical Community College I play Speed ID in my Anatomy class I spend two to three minutes flashing PowerPoint slides of anatomical structures We go around the room and have students call out IDs I time it just for fun Cheryl Black Aiken Technical College I always have a different student bring a news article or miscellaneous topic to discuss during class I ve had great discussions on Splenda an
14. n PowerPoint slides As you develop your presentations keep chanting Less is More Students want to write down everything on a slide You will know you have written too much if there is a chorus of Wait Go back when you move on to the next slide A slide should only include an outline of the points you want to make not complete e sentences Watch the font size on your slides PowerPoint automatically decreases it as you add content a clue that you have too much content Another sign of too much content is if students in the back of the classroom have difficulty reading the slides Similarly figures and graphs should not contain too much information Tell students when the figure can be found in the textbook or elsewhere this will alleviate their anxiety about getting it all down You will probably want to simplify any PowerPoint slides that come with your textbook In our experience these contain far too much information per slide but they are modifiable The most serious problem with PowerPoint is the ease with which it becomes the focus of the classroom Have you ever tried to converse with someone while a television is on It is very difficult to stay focused on the conversation PowerPoint can have a similar effect in the classroom Rather than being referred to as needed to support your lecture or guide students in group activities a PowerPoint presentation seems to draw all eyes toward it all the time If
15. nd editors who will keep alive his exceptional body of work and continue to interpret the field of biology for students around the world A Memorial Scholarship Fund has been established in Dr Campbell s honor to recognize and support under graduate students who aspire to pursue an education in the sciences at the University of California at Riverside Please see the next column for details of other scholar ship awards that are sponsored by Benjamin Cummings Benjamin Cummings PP WaTeNNe 1301 Sansome Street ais San Francisco CA 94111 TOME 800 950 2665 Cummings www aw bc com AA Recycled Printed a 8 Paper with Soy Ink Benjamin Cummings is an imprint of Pearson Education Inc STUDENT SCHOLARSHIPS Do you know of an outstanding student to nominate for a Benjamin Cummings scholarship award For the online nomination forms and details please visit BULLETIN www aw be com scholarships e The Biology Prize Scholarship gives 4 student grants of 1 000 each nomination deadline is May 6 2005 The Environmental Science Scholarship gives 10 student grants of 500 each nomination deadline is June 6 2005 The Allied Health Student Scholarship gives 5 student grants of 1000 each student applications are due November 1 2005 UPCOMING CONFERENCES ASM Conference for Undergraduate Educators June 3 5 2005 Emory University Atlanta GA www asmcue org American Society for Microbiology ASM June 5 9
16. on and falling bodies On a quiz he asked the students to figure out what would happen when an absent minded professor walked into a large hole and fell Some students com plained But there s weren t any hole problems on the homework Those students had worked many falling body problems but were not able to see that dropping something to the ground or dropping something to the bot tom of a hole involved exactly the same physics They had worked the home work but they didn t really get it continued on page 2 I O N Cc NO a3 But There Weren t Any Hole Problems continued from page 1 If you answered no to any or all of those ques tions Pd like to recommend two strategies for success which work particularly well when combined They are wireless student response systems clickers as they are often called and peer instruction Clickers allow you to ask your students a question any time you want during class and get instant feedback on what students are thinking Each student has an inexpensive wireless transmitter usually purchased at the college bookstore The transmitter allows a student to give discrete answers such as a b c d e or the numbers 1 10 Receivers installed in the classroom instantly record the results and send them to a computer where they are presented as a bar chart With an LCD projector this can be shown to the class so that everyone immediately knows what
17. oncept in the context of the equally important concepts of biotic potential and population growth curves And then add a dash of information on Darwin s ability to do lateral thinking Do I have your attention now Let s see how this can apply to the five essential parts of Darwin s thinking 1 Populations tend to increase at an exponential rate 2 Over time populations tend to remain remarkably constant These are obviously ideas Darwin gleaned from the famous essays on human populations penned by Thomas Malthus In modern terms number one above is the J shaped curve for biotic potential while number two is the S shaped curve for normal population growth and stabilization Hence we have a curve representing potential growth and one representing real growth For me cockroaches work well here but you can use what ever great example of exponential growth excites you In each case there is the potential for billions in a short period of time yet the reality is far less than the poten tial The difference between the two curves is best explained by individual competition for limited resources Thus Darwin s third idea 3 Competition exists between individuals of a species The beauty of this approach is that we can add the concept of lateral thinking Leaving the ideas of Malthus Darwin shifts to his experience with the artificial selec continued on page 7 fo wv Freshen Lectures by Connecting Unrelated Concept
18. rs in the Classroom showed that stu dents believe that scientists almost always give correct answers and are rarely uncertain This inhibits them from conjecturing what the right answer might be or from making an intelligent guess If you want all stu dents to participate you have to make it clear that while x lt A ny you ate happy with a correct answer an intelligent guess is welcomed as well Giving one clicker point for a wrong answer helps The classroom climate is up to you to set One of your main goals probably is that as many students as possible learn the material deeply enough that they truly understand and remember it In that case I recommend the enormous power of peer instruction Here s how it works When you give a thought provok ing clicker question and find that only a fraction of your class gets the correct answer you will be tempted to re explain the subject in another way figuring that this will teach those who haven t yet understood While multiple explanations are certainly good peer instruction pro vides a more powerful strategy Ask your students to turn to their left and their right in the lecture hall right now and convince each other who is right Once the students understand that you really do want them to talk in class the entire room will erupt into animated discus sion a lot like scientists talking with each other during a coffee break at a professional meeting And
19. s continued from page 6 tion techniques used by breeders From this experience he deduces his fourth idea and conclusion 4 No two individuals in a population are exactly the same genetically thus 5 Those individuals with the most favored genetic characteristics will survive passing these character istics to theit offspring and subsequently changing the genetic makeup of the population And what is the importance of adding lateral think ing to the process Most of us just keep digging deeper in the same hole when stymied by some difficult prob lem What characterizes the genius of Darwin and oth ers like him is their ability to dig a new hole and then connect seemingly unrelated concepts When a World War II bomber crew lost their hydraulic fluid to flak they were saved because someone shifted their thinking and suggested that the hydraulic system be filled with urine instead something they could produce them selves Darwin was able to connect seemingly unrelated concepts from genetics and population studies to develop his now famous concept of natural selection Perhaps this strategy will stimulate you to consider new approaches ideas and technologies in your lectures things that bring to the classroom and your students yout passion and excitement for the subject Hi Our READERS SOUND OFF LIVELY LECTURES Here is a selection of readers responses to Flow do you enliven your lectures To read more and
20. s of Science Beastie Boys e Introduction to Biology Wonderful World aka Don t Know Much Biology by Sam Cooke Alive P O D e Nutrition and Digestion Sugar Sugar The Archies Eat It Weird Al Yankovich The Middle Jimmy Eat World e The Cell Tainted Love Soft Cell Golgi Apparatus Phish e Photosynthesis Don t Turn Off the Lights Enrique Iglesias Walking on Sunshine Katrina and the Waves e Reproduction Reproduction Grease 2 sound track Let s Talk About Sex Salt N Pepa e Cloning I Think Pm a Clone Now Weird Al Yankovich Hello Dolly Broadway musical soundtrack For a list of over 60 relevant songs that I have compiled with the help of many colleagues or to contribute your own suggestion to this list please email me at esimon nec edu If you are not familiar with popular music yourself you can easily turn this idea into an active learning exer cise for your students After you ve played a few songs in class you can offer your students one bonus point for each relevant song they suggest Few professors would begrudge a student extra credit for actually think ing about biology during their free time One easy and free and legal way to play music in a computer equipped classroom is to access music sites like itunes com or amazon com There you can play free samples of songs typically 30 seconds These
21. sily provide students with lecture notes in a variety of formats If you are teaching a content heavy course such as anatomy providing lecture notes before class will allow you to cover more material in each class session since you don t have to slow down so that students can write down everything you have said On the other hand stu dents do not get the experience of translating your lec ture into their own words during note taking which research has shown to increase retention Offering lec ture notes also helps students prepare for exams We have many first generation college students and stu dents from not so great high schools and they need a lot of support as they learn to take class notes and study for university exams The structure of PowerPoint lec ture notes see above helps them identify what is and is not critical in our lectures Offering lecture notes is also helpful to students who miss a class We are on a commuter campus with many non traditionally aged stu dents and they sometimes miss class through no fault of their own because of traffic tie ups or family emer gencies Being able to print out PowerPoint lecture notes makes their already difficult lives a little less diffi cult One caveat students sometimes believe that because they have access to lecture notes there is no need for them to come to class Let s now discuss some of the problems people have with PowerPoint and ways that it is possible
22. sing PowerPoint will give you a good estimate of the number of slides you can get through per class If you don t write clearly on the board or if your classroom is so large that students in the back have difficulty seeing the board you can create PowerPoint slides listing the most important concepts in your lecture helping students take better notes Our col x A S league MerriLynn Casem inserts questions and discus sion prompts between content slides to allow for more thoughtful comprehension checks than simply Any questions You can increase the quality of the images you present to your class with PowerPoint Particularly in large lecture halls students are often unable to clearly see images shown on an overhead pro jector And who has the time or technical support to make slides these days If you are having students work with data or figures you can show it in PowerPoint to supplement their handout You can then lead them through the handout and emphasize points that might be lost in a black and white photocopy In addition to static images you can layer figures and graphs and incorporate animations directly into a PowerPoint file We have found that students understand some con cepts such as mitosis meiosis and DNA transcription and translation much more easily if they are first shown an animation of the process then introduced to each step with a static image then re shown the animation You can ea
23. that is the trick learning from peers is very powerful and the stu dents are each others peers You have just turned them all into teachers and we all know that teaching a subject helps you learn it Eric Mazur describes more details in his book Peer Instruction A User s Manual Pearson Prentice Hall 1997 which I highly recommend He has remarkable data on how much student learning increases As some thoughtful students say on video he is compiling as part of his ongoing research Professor Mazur is a brilliant scientist and teacher one of the best at Harvard But of course it is preferable to learn from your peers because they think more like you In my opinion incorporating peer instruction is much more difficult than just introducing clickers It is just plain weird at first to be standing in front of a large class and listening while they all talk You may hear the complaint we have heard I expected you to teach me I didn t know I would have to learn But much research shows that this method produces more learning than any lecture So I encourage you to experiment with spending some of your lecture time as this sort of guide on the side rather than always being the sage on the stage W Editor s Note Dr Duncan shares his research and provides benefits tips and techniques for using classroom response systems in Clickers in the Classroom Benjamin Cummings 2005 ISBN 0
24. to minimize these problems We will discuss these poten continued on page 5 4 fo wv PowerPoint Friend or Foe continued from page 4 tial difficulties in the order that you are likely to experi ence them PowerPoint Foe The initial investment of time to turn your lectures into PowerPoint presentations can be high This includes time to turn slides into digital images to scan photos to prepare graphs and other figures and to outline your lecture Be sure to schedule enough time either between terms or with release time to do this Many universities have mini grants or offer work shops to support incorporating technology into teach ing If yours does not you might speak to your depart ment chair or dean about support After you have learned how to work in PowerPoint and developed your presentations it does not take much time to update or modify them It is easy to then become obsessed with tinkering adding bells and whistles such as elaborate slide templates and fancy transitions Beware This can become an enormous time sink and it is well docu mented that these flourishes interfere with students understanding of the material It is unfortunately much less easy to completely re think a lecture when it is already set up in a clear compelling linear way More on this in the fourth point below There are many potential technical problems that can interfere with a successful PowerPoint presentation From the
25. ttAtegins Hie In This Issue 1 But There Weren t Any Hole Problems on the Homework Douglas Duncan University of Colorado Popular Music Can Enliven Your Classroom Eric J Simon New England College O PowerPoint Friend or Foe Anne Houtman and Melissa Presch California State University Fullerton O Freshen Lectures by Connecting Unrelated Concepts David Eakin Eastern Kentucky University 7 Our Readers Sound Off Ways to Keep Your Lectures Lively Sound Off News and Events About The Newsletter Strategies for Success is published as a service to undergraduate science instruc fors It is intended to stimulate ideas disseminate solutions to common obsta cles and update readers on recent devel opments and findings We welcome comments contributed articles and sug gestions for future issues Please contact the Editor at strategies aw com or via fax at 978 465 6658 Past issues of the newsletter are available on our Web site at www aw bc com events strategies A BENJAMIN CUMMINGS PUBLIC A T SPRING 2005 A visit to a science classroom today might prompt a Maat paraphrase of a memorable advertisement TPs not LECTURE your parent s lecture Yet the art of lecturing and COMPONENT the craft of composing an effective lecture remain skills that our readers work hard to master and improve In this issue we examine one of the newest technologies being used in lecture cl
26. you are at all tired or distracted you may find yourself reading from the screen If this happens even once students will believe that they can get just as much from the PowerPoint lecture notes and will miss class in droves Consider turning off the projector when you do not absolutely need to have a slide up The downside of this strategy is that we have had difficulty re starting a pre sentation after turning it off A related problem is that dimming the lights to help students see the screen can put them to sleep This is especially problematic for eatly morning classes and those immediately after lunch Sleepy students are passive students It is easier to keep the lights up if you have simple figures and stick with large black print on a white background Finally the clarity and linearity of a PowerPoint presentation make continued on page 6 PowerPoint Friend or Foe continued from page 5 it less likely that you will explore interesting possibilities brought up by student questions and this can squelch discussion After a few class meetings like this students will become less active participants in the classroom This requires constant vigilance You may want to schedule Unplugged class meetings to maintain an interactive atmosphere The Bottom Line We keep using PowerPoint even with our many concerns mainly for the ability to show better quality images to our large 100 classes Once a year or so we say that we
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