Week 4: What I've Learned

I’ve presented Power Point presentations for years now.  I’ve developed high-end business presentations and training presentations for military students.  I’ve made “Welcome” presentations for visitors to our company and ‘info-mercials’ for my coworkers.  However, making a PowerPoint presentation for students….now that was a challenge!

Let me start by saying that I have loved PowerPoint since I began using it years ago in business.  It is relatively straightforward and easy to learn.  It’s portable and can be edited and updated quickly for last minute changes.  You can adapt it to fit most any situation and that makes for a fabulous traveling tool!  Add to those features, the ability to add gorgeous graphics, video and music, and you have created a powerhouse for presentation.  However, with all the excitement of what can be done with this type of presentation software, we must keep in mind what should be done with it.  With so much technology at our fingertips, it’s easy to get carried away by the bells and whistles.  We sometimes focus on adding the ‘whiz-bang’ factor and tend to stray away from the message we are actually trying to present. Recognizing these tendencies, coupled with the “I Want It Now” attention span of information-age students can make creating a presentation a daunting task.  But, I set about the task determined to make it work.

As I am not yet teaching, I had to be a little creative.  My daughter and her friends are in the 4^th grade and have become my weekend guinea pigs.  They are very excited to be included in a “College” class, so they willingly agreed to be my test subjects. (Not to mention they LOVE the fact that I have homework too!)  I created a PowerPoint presentation in my field using the Scientific Method as my subject.  In the presentation, I included slides on the method as a whole and then individual slides for each step of the method.  Beginning with “Make Observations”, I was able to include video on volcanic eruptions .The students viewed the video and then were asked to Make Observations.  With directed questioning, one of the topics that came up during their observations was why some volcanoes erupted more explosively than others.    Next, the students “Asked a Question” as the next step of the process.  They wanted to know WHY some volcanoes are more explosive than others.  Based on information in the slides about how volcanoes erupt, they can then “Form a Hypothesis” about this process.  In the presentation, they are following a group of scientists who have researched this and they get to view the testing process of the Scientific Method.  The slides show photographs of the testing process and data recorded from the experiments.  We paused during this portion to examine the results of the experiment.  The next slide asked them if the experiment supported the hypothesis or not.  They could then draw conclusions about their hypothesis and decide if further testing was needed. 

The great part of this presentation was that it enabled the students to view a real-life experiment.  In a typical classroom, you would not be able to view a volcanic explosion or see how to ‘create’ a volcanic explosion.  This video enabled them to be part of that process without being at the site or the lab.  While they were ‘guided’ in the type of experiments and testing, the students had the experience of what a scientist would do to form a hypothesis, test the theories and draw conclusions.  I was excited to see the ‘students’ use the notes from the PowerPoint as a guide and to see them making their own comments on them.  The notes allowed for the vocabulary of the lesson to be added in and used for future studying as well.  Overall, the students reacted very positively to the presentation.  What 4^th grader doesn’t like a good volcanic explosion?!  This presentation did open up a lot of discussion about volcanoes and how to test variables.  Overall, they got it!  It was a success.  In the future, I would probably break this unit up into more days.  It would be possible to present the Scientific Method as its own presentation, and then add a secondary presentation to “show” the Method.  It would provide a base of knowledge and then the secondary “cool” stuff would help to solidify their knowledge of the process.

Watching the kids enjoy the presentation and gather useful information was incredible!  My daughter informed me at the beginning that she knew a lot about the Scientific Method.  The great part was that after it was over she admitted she learned about HOW to do it!  Gotta’ love that!