Designing slides for teaching
Are your slides meant for teaching?
Are you aware of the differences between slides for teaching and slides for general presentations?
I met with some educators from a local university, and the topic of how to design presentation slides for teaching purposes came up during the discussion.
It was a very meaningful discussion, and I thought I would share the takeaways from the conversation here.
Designing presentation slides for a training session is quite similar to a general presentation, except the focus is to educate rather than inform.
The overall idea and visual concept are the same. However, the content structure on approaching teaching slides will be different.
One of the key ideas for an effective presentation, regardless of the type of presentation, is to ensure that people can see the information we show on the slides.
A general presentation will usually last between 15 to 90 minutes. A lecture session can be up to 3 hours.
Can you recall the times when you sat in lectures?
What do those lecture slides look like?
Very often, we see slides that duplicate the content of lesson notes. This approach will not be effective as students can read the notes on their own.
So, we shouldn’t present the notes on slides during the lecture but instead, show key learning that will engage and encourage student participation.
Sitting and listening to a continuous 3-hour lecture can be tiring, especially when all lecture slides are very heavy in content.
Breaking up 3 hours lecture into shorter segments of 20–50 minutes, each with more engaging slides helps make the lecture lighter and more enjoyable.
Ideally, for each segment, make it 30 mins key learning lecture, 20 mins activity, and 10 mins break in between segments. It would be best to design slides focusing on key learning here.
Doing so would mean having less content on slides but more valuable content that is concise relevant to the key learning. Include stories as part of the design is also a good practice.
Clarity is essential for slides used for teaching.
We should, at all times, refrain from reproducing the course notes on slides used for teaching. Students already have the notes, and they can read them on their own. However, we should display only the essential learning that the students should remember (or take away) in class.
We should ensure that our teaching slides engage the students and that the learning experience is exciting and fulfilling.
Put yourself in the shoes of your students. Would you rather have a fun learning experience taking away key learning that is easily understood, or would you rather have the lecturer read your notes back to you in class?
Refrain from reproducing course notes on slides used for teaching.
If you make presentation slides for teaching, let me know if you agree with me about how teaching slides should be designed.
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