40 ms·

Most professors, you really gotta slow them down. This is their life's work and they know it bottom to top. If you let them run at their natural clip, you're

by warcher 10y ago

Most professors, you really gotta slow them down. This is their life's work and they know it bottom to top. If you let them run at their natural clip, you're gonna miss stuff. Making them write it down is great for that. If you let them use slides, you gotta ask them questions and break their rhythm or they'll just roll right over you.

leadingthenet 10y ago
Thank you, somebody other than me finally said it. I hate lecture slides with passion, so much so that I barely even go to lectures anymore. I mean, what's the point if all they're going to do is read them out loud? I can do that at home.
- ghaff 10y ago
  We've had the tech to box up big lectures since VCRs went mainstream. That's the easy (and cheap) part.
- illumin8 10y ago
  If your professor is just reading text bullet points from a slide, he sucks at public speaking and presentation skills. Don't blame the medium for poor public speaking skills. I was just in a 2-day classroom setting this week and the presenter was brilliant - switching from slides, which they annotated with a digital pen while presenting, to whiteboard, to discussion seamlessly, without losing interest or focus from the students. Public speaking is a skill like any other that any educator needs to be good at. Don't blame the medium for your educator's poor public speaking skills.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    I had a philosophy prof that would put up his lecture on (relatively) dense slides and then proceed to stand in front of the slides (not looking at them) and give the whole talk exactly as the text on the slides. It was quite amazing. And since he wasn't actually reading them, it was a good presentation.
  - eric_the_read 10y ago
    Using powerpoint (or related tech) enables sucking at public speaking and presentation skills, in a way that lecturing in front of a {black,white}board does not. One of my favorite education-related blogs is University Diaries, by Margaret Soltan (an English professor at George Washington University). She writes quite entertainingly and excoriatingly about the use of PowerPoint as an alternative to teaching: http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?s=powerpoint http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?s=powerpoint

by warcher 10y ago

leadingthenet 10y ago

Thank you, somebody other than me finally said it. I hate lecture slides with passion, so much so that I barely even go to lectures anymore. I mean, what's the point if all they're going to do is read them out loud? I can do that at home.

ghaff 10y ago
We've had the tech to box up big lectures since VCRs went mainstream. That's the easy (and cheap) part.
illumin8 10y ago
If your professor is just reading text bullet points from a slide, he sucks at public speaking and presentation skills. Don't blame the medium for poor public speaking skills. I was just in a 2-day classroom setting this week and the presenter was brilliant - switching from slides, which they annotated with a digital pen while presenting, to whiteboard, to discussion seamlessly, without losing interest or focus from the students. Public speaking is a skill like any other that any educator needs to be good at. Don't blame the medium for your educator's poor public speaking skills.
- wvenable 10y ago
  I had a philosophy prof that would put up his lecture on (relatively) dense slides and then proceed to stand in front of the slides (not looking at them) and give the whole talk exactly as the text on the slides. It was quite amazing. And since he wasn't actually reading them, it was a good presentation.
- eric_the_read 10y ago
  Using powerpoint (or related tech) enables sucking at public speaking and presentation skills, in a way that lecturing in front of a {black,white}board does not. One of my favorite education-related blogs is University Diaries, by Margaret Soltan (an English professor at George Washington University). She writes quite entertainingly and excoriatingly about the use of PowerPoint as an alternative to teaching: http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?s=powerpoint http://www.margaretsoltan.com/?s=powerpoint