7 Mistakes Chemistry Teachers Make When Teaching Off PowerPoints
Have you ever been teaching a group of students, and you can almost see your words going in one ear and out of the other ear?
They talk.
They text.
They doodle. (And not in a good way!)
You don't know what to do besides snow plow through the lesson, and pretend it is going along fine. After all, you know students can smell fear.
Have you considered the problem may not be you? It's your cookie-cutter McBoring-Hill slides provided by McBoring-Hill.
PowerPoints give us with the ability to wow our students. Unfortunately, they are rarely wowed. Often they are just lulled to sleep by too complicated text blocks.
After fixing these common mistakes, your students will be bingeing your presentations like Netflix.
#1 Always Teaching Off PowerPoints
Every lesson you begin starts with a PowerPoint.
It comes with the curriculum. It’s easy. There aren’t any errors. (Most of the time.) They are consistent. You know what word fits with the description I just gave you?
Booorrrrring.
That’s right, boring.
When you are flying through a PowerPoint, you can't really fix it if your students are bored. You get flustered and try to rush because the lesson isn't going according to plan and you don't know what else to do besides get it over with.
But, when you are hand writing the lesson, you can stop and draw and color code and really engage your students.
Mix it up a little. Hand write the information from slides on the board instead of talking through them like an auctioneer on Red Bull. Your student engagement will skyrocket from that one change.
Watch their faces and watch their pencils to gauge the difference.
#2 Reading Off Slides
No one means to read slides. We all know we shouldn’t. But, your kids were late getting up, you spilled your coffee and then had to change your shirt. Some student stopped you on the way into class and handed you late work from 2 months ago. And now, you are distracted and need to run through the lesson without a lot of thinking.
Which means you are going to inadvertently read the slides. But you can fool proof your slides.
When using a slide presentation to teach, build in interactive slides. Add in poll slides, text in answer slides, problem slides, text in emoji slides, game show slides.
By building in interactive slides you are making it so you can't read slides.
So take control of those bad mornings, by planning for frustration and forcing yourself to be better.
#3 Slide Pace is Too Slow for Gen Z
Gen Z needs a fast pace. Pshhhh! I need a fast pace.
Clicking the slide and then talking on that one slide for 5-10 minutes is not okay.
Teachers! This is the world we live in. If you are not flashing and in their faces, you will not get their attention. I’m not saying that it is right, I’m saying that it is.
So, roll with it and add a little bit more to your PowerPoints. Put in a slide with an emoji teasing them about how they will feel about these problems.
When doing example problems, put each step on a slide instead of the whole problem. Or, have the steps fly in one by one. This way you can engage your students and ask what they think the next step should be.
Or, using the previous point, they could text in opinions!
If you must teach with slides, make them fast and make them furiously flashy!
#4 But, the Information Pace is Too Fast for Students
This may seem to contradict what I just said, but these are two different things. Your slide pace needs to be like drivers on the Autobahn. Zoom, Zoom, Zoom!
BUT -and I mean BUT- Your information pace needs to be slow and allow for practice.
For example, if I was teaching writing chemical equations, the first 2 teaching minutes would look like this:
0:15 Intro slide-Slide with 1 simple chemical formula-
0:30-Slide breaking down chemical formula-Slide showing metals,nonmetals, metaloids
0:45-Slide with a poll
1:30-Discuss results
3:00-Slide with an example problem on it
5:00-Slide with a practice problem
6:00-Go over problems with students for 2 minutes
See how I am mixing in slides for students to interact with and digest information along with informational slides?
#5 Not Enough Practice with New Information
There are many lists that students must use in chemistry class. Many times we will put that list on a slide and tell the students to access it on Google Classroom later.
SCREEEEECH. Rewind.
No.
They need to learn to use it now. In class. With you.
So leave the list up, or hand out copies, and have everyone practice together. Work out a problem yourself, then have them do it. Have students take a poll or text in the answers. It doesn't matter as long as they are working with the new material you gave them now.
Because we both know, they aren't going back to Google Classroom unless they are familiar with the material.
#6 The Fonts are Too Cute
So, if you are a super awesome teacher (which I know you are!), and you recognize how dreadfully boring most mass produced PowerPoints are, you created your own PowerPoint tailored to your own classroom needs and it is wayyy better than that vanilla PowerPoint produced by McBoring-Hill.
So kudos!
But, are your fonts a little too cute? I love fun fonts as much as the next teacher, but they have a place. So make sure that readability is #1 and cuteness is #2.
#7 The Interactive Element is Missing
If your PowerPoint lasts for 35 minutes with 5-7 minutes at the beginning and end of class with no example problems, polls, feedback, interaction, student problem attempts, then…
Houston. We have a problem.
If you are introducing cations and anions have a slide where students have to copy down ions and label/color the cations and anions.
If you are teaching writing chemical formulas, then you need a slide where students attempt to write a formula from a name.
Then, you give the answer after they attempt it. And you aren’t done there. You need to put up another slide with a slightly harder problem shortly after the last one.
It doesn’t matter if you have students work it out on their papers, take a text message poll, discuss in groups, as long as they are engaging with the problem.
Improve Your PowerPoints
That is a lot of information. The point is we can improve our PowerPoints.
If you don’t have time, find a PowerPoint that fits your classroom on TpT. Or, even better, take me up on #1 and just hand write your lesson.
I really want you to stop and think about the content of your slides from a student perspective, and make it better. I did!
My slides were terrible! But over time, I improved.
Your slides can improve too.