Practice

After a recent discussion with Rally, I now have a whole series of blog ideas to do – first up, using powerpoints while helping writers.

We have a wealth of resources available to help students. There’s a variety of journal articles and handouts on Teams, links we might have found in our own research, and our own expertise in session. When a student brings in work to discuss, it’s easy to talk through what they can do to help improve their problem area and, if needed, send them through some of the resources that may be applicable to cement that discussion later. As we started working online, however, I realised that I found this more difficult when the writer didn’t bring work for us to discuss. It was harder to gauge how much they understood or, if I showed them examples, if they were seeing the things I was trying to point out. My eventual solution: Powerpoints.

I’ve built up a number of Powerpoints that translate common subjects I talk to writers about into a handful of slides, linking to further reading where relevant. In a session, I can share my screen with a student and talk through the subject with them, asking about their practice and helping them think about what might help them get better in their problem area. And, for my own professional development, it encourages me to think deeply about a common subject – whether this is planning, editing, or structure – and organise my own knowledge (so hopefully beneficial even for the students who do bring work to talk through).

My Rationale

Obviously, my personal reason for using Powerpoint is that it’s easier for me. I use Powerpoint for academic presentations and teaching, so I’m used to quickly condensing the important information onto a handful of slides. But, for this post, I’ve tried to think about why I think it might work for writers.

Visual

Having something to show and talk through always seems to make information easier to communicate. I talk with my hands a lot in real life and will often make use of diagrams or quick notes in in-person one-to-ones. I still prefer the sessions where the writer brings something with them to look at as an example, but using a notebook or post-its can be useful if they don’t have something. Online, this is harder. Powerpoints have, in some ways, helped me fill that gap.

A number of the resources we have on Teams are journal articles or handouts with quite a bit of text. While these raise great points of discussion, this can be overwhelming for the student if shown through a screenshare when they may already be anxious about a topic. Using a Powerpoint, it’s easier to chunk information so that it seems more manageable – I can talk with the student in more depth about the subject while they have the visual input of the Powerpoint shared on their screen. Broken down in this way, the subject they’re struggling with seems easier and they can then use the confidence this brings to keep developing their knowledge.

An example slide for introductions (using the same framework discussed by Eoin here). The student can quickly skim the things in bold and then read further if they need more information.

Structure

One of the strengths of a Powerpoint in teaching is the organisation it brings to your work. You have to break down information to keep slides clear. It helps the subject look smaller and more manageable – it’s a subject I’ve been able to break down, so the student will be able to do the same. An additional benefit when one-to-one with a student, is the flexibility a Powerpoint offers. It’s easy to hop directly to the subject the student needs help with. A student struggles with writing introductions? I have a Powerpoint that revolves around essay structure generally, but I can just talk through the slide on introductions with them rather than skimming through the whole thing.

Something they can keep

While we’re online, I’ve taken to linking to a Powerpoint that may be relevant to a subject discussed with a student (if I have one) in their appointment record. From my perspective, it’s a way to reassure myself that the student will be able to retain whatever information we’ve discussed as they can return to the Powerpoint as a visual prompt. It’s a way of me taking the information I would talk them through verbally and making it physical – and, added bonus, I can link to other resources to build on this further.

Evidence for/against Powerpoints

Baker et al.’s meta-analysis examining the effect of Powerpoint on learning found no solid evidence that using Powerpoints improves learning when compared to traditional teaching (2018). They identified a number of positive reasons for using Powerpoints:

Multimodal affordances.
Sustaining student attention.
Organisation.
Summarisation.
Increases the instructor’s perceived authority.

They also found a number of negatives though, it should be noted, that these negatives applied to contexts where the use of a Powerpoint replaced ‘chalk and talk’-style lectures.

Means instructors talk faster.
Less elaboration beyond reading off the slide.
Diminishes interaction and discussion.

This study, echoed by Gorsani and Khajavi (2020), suggests that the question of Powerpoint effectiveness is less about whether they should be used but rather how they are used. In a one-to-one peer writing context, the negatives identified by Baker et al. are minimised as I can adapt and go at the pace of the student in front of me, elaborating in a way that suits them and their subject. I’m sure there are other ways of achieving the same effect – and many that would work better – but this is a practice that is currently working well for me.

Until talking to Rally, I hadn’t realised that using Powerpoints in this way might be unusual in a one-to-one Peer Writing session. I’d love to hear about the ways other people work and any tricks they’ve got for helping students (particularly when they have no specific work with them to talk through)!