Based on some of the feedback I got on my last post, I thought I'd dive a little deeper on using slide decks.

I had some people tell me that they too found that slide decks didn't work for them while others shared that they use them regularly. Still others shared how they specifically used them.

Now, as I said, they don't work for me. Sorry if I wasn't clear. I didn't mean that they never worked or didn't work for anybody. The important thing is that slides or complete slide decks are tools and can be used for good or for ill. What's important is that a teacher is intentional about the practices they use and use the right tool in the right way at the right time.

There are ways that slides can be horrible. If they accompany a one directional old school lecture with no active learning going on. If they convey enough information so that students zone out because they can just get the slides later but then realize that the slides aren't nearly enough on their own or when slides drive the direction and pace of the lesson as opposed to the actual class situation.

On the other hand slides can be effective - they can be a time saver if you want to bring up say, a definition or long quote as an example and indeed I've seen some slide decks that form the basis of excellent reference materials. They can also provide a focal point for both students and instructors.

Of course just about any practice can be good or bad. A few years ago before the pendulum started swinging back, discovery learning was all the rage, of course everyone ignored the difficulties in setting up a strong discovery learning experience and just told teachers they should do all discovery all the time. To them, since I was tenured and in general have an irreverent streak when it comes to superiors I'd say things like "well, in the history of mankind only two people discovery-learned calculus" or something similar.

Well, as a practice, doing a discovery lesson where the experience isn't sufficiently set up and scaffolded and the students not sufficiently prepared can be disastrous. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that a bad lecture can be better than a bad discovery based lesson.

Now to get back to slides, I should probably share where I'm coming from. I started teaching in the early 90s. The only slides you could use were old school overhead projector slides. You also probably had to hand write them. I guess professors at the college level could print them but high schools just didn't have those fancy resources. I had a couple of math colleagues who made heavy use of slides but more by using the overhead as a marker based board and wrote on the pages live.

When I started teaching CS, I was in a traditional classroom with a chalkboard. We only went in to the computer lab when the kids were programming. I could deliver instruction in the computer lab - it even had a VGA overhead projector that wasn't all that terrible but teaching in the computer lab was less than ideal - there was no room on the desks for students to work between the large computers, big CRT monitors and keyboards and the sight lines were awful. When we were dumped into the computer labs to teach full time, at least we were allowed to rearrange the room to make it better and flatscreen monitors have made a huge difference for desk space.

Looking back, our greatest tech was that graph maker thing. For you youngsters, it was like a projector screen that you pulled down in front of a chalkboard. It had a grid of holes in it. You'd go over the whole surface with a dusty eraser which would let the chalk dust through the holes. Pull up the screen and you ended up with a perforated grid on the board - instant graph. Pretty cool tech.

So, I came up as a teacher without slides.

Now, younger teachers have shared with me what they like about slides.

A recurring theme was that it meant that there was something to give a student who missed class. This can be a benefit, particularly if the slides are enough to catch the student up. I'm guessing that usually, they can help but hopefully they aren't enough. Why hopefully? Well, if a student can get the full value of the lesson by merely reading through the slides then how much value is the teacher bringing to the class. I think more often the slides can provide some information but that absent student will still have to do some extra to catch up.

So what did I do without slides? Well, back in the day, students took notes so I paired the absent student with a present one who had good notes. Often at Stuy the absent kid would take it upon them self to do this with or for a friend.

I also know that instructors often share slides with other instructors. This seems bigger at the college level. Well, we used to share lesson plans. It wasn't uncommon for a teacher to have a book of lesson plans for a semester or a folder or something similar. The first time I taught linear algebra, I borrowed the lesson plans from a colleague. These were likely far better than slides unless the slides had copious presenter notes.

I've also had people tell me that they use slides to present prompts, key questions, and things like code snippets.

Using them this way sounds great to me. I don't do that with slides but I'd have code snippets ready in an Emacs buffer and key questions written in my lesson plans. Sounds like a good use of slides but it's also something that can be accomplished without slides.

When you cut away the chaff, most of the people who told me they liked slides basically seem to be using them as visible lesson plans with time saver materials. Sounds good to me, but personally I think I'm more effective without them. At times, I like the idea of instantly bringing up a quote or a definition or a prompt but I like the pacing I get sometimes when writing it out or when I have students actually copy something down. It's a different type of engagement.

Besides, for me the slides would be too constraining. I've frequently likened teaching to rap or stand up comedy. You've got your core material (the lesson or the main lyrics or routine), you're catch phrases or go to lines (I don't get no respect, or "put your hands in the air like you just don't care"), and then the improv stuff. For me, if I had detailed slides, I know that it would keep me from the improv stuff which includes riffing off discussion and yes, at times tangents. I think my lessons would lose a lot of whatever richness would normally be there.

That's just me.

That brings up another issue in terms of "best practices." Too often the "experts" and "thought leaders" who force "the research" upon us hit us with a one size fits all. When I started, everyone had to use discovery learning (not to be confused with group work or other similar practices). A while later, discovery became the rage. More recently, although not being touted as the be all and end all, direct instruction has been making a comeback, albeit with active learning. If you didn't teach using the chosen method, you were "ineffective" regardless of how good you actually were.

The truth is, there are multiple things that go into a practice being effective. Obviously the students in a particular class. The specific topic also comes into play. All sorts of other school factors also have to be considered - class size, composition, even time of day and what else is going on within the kids schedules.

On top of all of those though is the one factor that is almost always left out - the teacher. Most teachers have their own strengths and weaknesses and also our preferences.

If an effective teacher leans towards direct instruction with slides, then all things being equal, that will likely be one of their more effective practices more often than not. Sure, there will be times to mix in other practices and there might even be classes where using a whole other practice would be better for the majority of lessons but the "all things equal" default probably should lean towards a teachers strength, providing that that strength can be a good practice.

For example, I'm not a cooperative learning guy. Sure, I've done it - I've set up the roles, prepared the materials, and employed the practice but it was never my strength and at the end of the day, other than as a change of pace, my students didn't enjoy my cooperative learning lessons as much as my other lessons.

Contrast that to one of my mentor teachers who was all cooperative all the time. Cooperative learning went over way better for him but if he tried to teach like me, it didn't take.

At the end of the day we were both well respected, well liked, and got good results but ended up leaning on different practices to get there.

Closing up, I'll also give one more reason why I don't do slide decks and that's pure laziness. Even when I teach a class over year after year, each class is a little different so I rethink my lesson plans and make new notes. Sure, the lessons are largely similar so the lesson plans are mostly the same but some details always change.

If I used slides, I'd have to revise them or remake them every time through and I'm not nearly organized enough to do this. I'm far too lazy.

So, that's it - slide decks - not for me but for others they can be effective when used well.

Sorry if my last post implied otherwise