Slides with bullet points are detrimental to learning

I've decided to write this blog because all the popular books and websites I see about the best use of presentation software are aimed at people in business or other non-educational areas.  When I try to persuade academics that many of the same rules apply within the lecture theatre as the board room or conference hall, I often get short shrift.  So I've decided to use this blog to show how the lessons of 'presentation gurus' like Nancy Duarte, Garr Reynolds, Cliff Atkinson and Olivia Mitchell can be adapted and applied to the sort of 'presentations' we create for academic lectures.


The first and most important thing to do is to GET RID OF BULLET POINTS.  Research (much by Richard E Mayer at UCSB) shows that students do not learn well when written text (such as bullet points on a slide) is presented simultaneously with the spoken word (as in the narration to a presentation).  Mayer's research actually showed that students learned better from narration alone than when it was coupled with the written word.  It is official - slides full of text (usually in the form of bullet points) are detrimental to learning!


This is obvious when you think about it, how many of us can listen to a play on the radio whilst reading a book?  Even if the book was about the play this is an impossible task; we mentally tune out what is being said whilst we read, if we find ourselves listening we have to re-read the same paragraph in the book.

Carousel projector from 1963 -
was it responsible for slides
full of bullet points?

Most lecturers are horrified at the idea of getting rid of bullet points.  They seem to think that it is like removing their right arm.  I would simply question why we feel the need to use them in the first place.  When did the bullet point arrive in academia?  I suspect it was when we started to be able to produce 35mm slides back in the 50s and 60s.  You know, the ones that went on a carousel and always got stuck at some time during the lecture. Originally these were just used for images but there came a time when we could add text to them (I remember blue backgrounds with yellow text a lot).  The problem was, they were quite expensive to get made, so people put as many points as they could onto one slide - and the 'bullet point slide' was born.  PowerPoint did a lot to perpetuate this, earlier versions had 'bulleted list' as the default slide layout.  Even now, the default layout when you click 'New Slide' after your title slide has your first bullet point waiting to be filled.....don't do it!!  


The main reason lecturers seem averse to getting rid of bullet points is they cannot think of another way of getting the material across.  Somehow they think that students will not listen to them unless a digest of what they are saying is written behind them.  Remember Mayer's research - students learn better with JUST narration than they do with text and narration together.  If you cannot think of suitable non-bullet point content for a slide remember that putting nothing is better than lots of text.


Others think they will simply not remember what they need to say and use the bullet points as an aide memoir.  This just leads to lecturers reading their slides which students say is by far the most annoying thing about PowerPoint and leads to BORING lectures.  We just have to do what we tell our students to do: prepare well.  For most experienced lecturers, a single sentence should be enough to prompt the recall necessary (which is on the slide as a title).  New lecturers should consider using simple cue cards or Presenter View (where the lecturer sees their speakers notes and the students see the slides).  Unfortunately some lecture theatres do not support this view, here at the University of Hull for instance we cannot use Presenter View as the feed to our screens comes straight from the lectern monitor not the PC.  In any case, we should release ourselves from behind the lectern whenever possible.


I saw a slide recently with these fantastic bullet points on it (there was no narrator!)

       

I don't know about you, but the idea of turning up for a lecture where I know the students will not be listening to a word I say is disheartening to say the least!


Getting back to Mayer's research, he found that if the spoken narration was coupled with meaningful illustrations instead of written text, understanding was increased.


So there it is, fill the body of the slide with a meaningful image (photograph, drawing, diagram, chart etc) and talk about it.  Job done - students learn better.

A slide from a Human Grown and Development module given here at the
University of Hull showing a relevant image as the main slide content

A slide from an Academic and Professional Skills module given here at the
University of Hull showing the main body of the slide filled with a chart