Abstract:

The implantation of degrees and masters adapted to the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) has raised, to a greater or lower extent, a substantial change in teaching methodology. EHEA principles require the implementation of cooperative teaching learning processes, leading to new ways of work in which new technologies play a core role. Most teachers have managed to adapt to the situation by learning those new techniques and trying to apply them to their courses. Despite the evolving educational landscape, participative university lectures are still an essential instrument in every teacher’s “toolbox” independently of the teaching method, i.e. lecture or active method such as problem-based learning. When it comes to support this method, slide presentations become a key resource. However, the extended usage of slide presentations has not conveyed a substantial change on how lectures are developed compared to traditional transparency sheets’ era. In many cases, classes are monotonous and systematic, leading to what is commonly termed as “death by PowerPoint” (Clark, 2008; DuFrene & Lehman, 2004). Consequently, the potential of siles’ presentation is clearly underutilized (Reynolds, 2009).

The efficient use of presentation tools has advantages both for students and teachers. Students feel more interested and involved with the subject, showing a greater participation and proactive attitude—very important in the new learning framework. From lecturers’ point of view, their teaching labour gets reinforced as a consequence of better communication and interaction, encouraging and guiding the process of knowledge acquisition and competencies development (Clark, 2008).

In this paper we present the key results of a research project aimed at achieving a deeper understanding of those aspects which may lead to a better and more complete use of presentations in classroom. More specifically, the following issues are analysed as improvement areas:
(1) Analysis of more effective presentations’ characteristics: i.e., advanced design—in terms of structure, content, and integration with social media—and consideration of storytelling;
(2) Ways of making lessons more accessible for students: assessment of web tools to video recording of lectures and sharing alternatives;
(3) Analysis of non-linear alternatives to PowerPoint.

The research design is practice-oriented and it was conducted by a group of educators from the College of Business and Economics at the University of Almería. After a period of individual research and group feedback refinement, different tools and techniques were implemented in class presentations. Final results and perceptions, in terms of easiness/difficulty of application, attention paid to the lesson and increase of student interactions, were shared with the rest of the group. Our findings show that students do value the use of more advanced techniques of presentation. Specifically, we found that the integration of multiple sources of information, i.e., videos, pictures, social media, etc., and the application of storytelling considerably increased the level of attention and participation among students. This may be a consequence of the age cohort characteristics since millennials, as technology natives, are more used to combine sources of information compared to than previous generations more used to text-based resources.

References available by request.

Keywords:

Presentation dynamization, PowerPoint, university lecture.