Proceedings of The 6th International Conference on New Trends in Teaching and Education
Year: 2023
DOI:
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Possible Options for solving three negative Factors that Affect the Success of Using PowerPoint as a Teaching Aid
Dessalegn Temesgen Leye (Ph.D)
ABSTRACT:
Nowadays, information and communication technologies have become an essential part of our daily life. Nothing in the civilized part of the planet can take place without the involvement of the elements of ICT. Moreover, it is rooted in teaching-learning activities. However, as pedagogue and biochemist, we have had doubts about how we lecturers are utilizing PowerPoint. Therefore, around a decade ago, we were focused on how to improve the use of PowerPoint as a teaching tool/aid: during delivering biochemistry courses using PowerPoint, we observed that students grasp the flow of information attentively only within the first 20 to 30 minutes. According to our literature review, others also experimentally show not only the inclination of students attention durability, but also researchers revealed that students better understand the content of a lecture when it is delivered in a traditional way – the blackboard chalk method. However, we didn’t found a study about why students attention decline and why traditional way of delivering is better. Therefore, almost decades ago we held a questionnaire and experimental-based study on students and lecturers. Both the questionnaire and experimental results show that students’ attention declines because of the slides’ contents and the screen structure. Certainly, as a pedagogue, we were aware of the misuse of PowerPoint software for lecturing purposes. Moreover, through observation, we revealed that even most of the lecturers wasting up to 20 minutes in adjusting laptop and screen before starting the lecture. Accordingly, although nowadays there are smart rooms, where mounted LCD and screen, we postulate that there must be pedagogy and computer-technical-based training for lecturers on how to prepare lecture contents through PowerPoint slides. In addition, we have constructed a new model of a double-sided (for text and graphic-based contents) Anti-keystone Projection Screen to minimize the screen’s impact on students’ health.
keywords: LCD, PPt, Higher education, quality of education