Why PowerPoint?

I just finished reading a 2004 interview of Richard E. Mayer, a guru of educational psychology research and psychology professor at University of California - Santa Barbara. The title of the article reporting the interview is "The Cognitive Load of PowerPoint" and the crux of Dr. Mayer's remarks have to do with our instructional objectives when using PowerPoint in the classroom [Link to full text, registration required]. Specifically, he suggests we instructors (and presumably committee presenters, and conference presenters, etc., etc., and so forth) take a look at what we are trying to accomplish when we use PowerPoint. Are we trying to use the slides to transfer information or to guide learning? The former, he says, usually does not result in learning since sharing information via a PowerPoint slide does not typically allow for cognitive processing time. On the other hand, he says:

When your goal is cognitive guidance, you want to make sure that the audience members build appropriate knowledge in their memories. Your job is to communicate in a way that will have the desired impact on the audience, so you need to design your slides so they are consistent with how people learn.

Now that's a pretty interesting distinction, don't you think? And Dr Mayer goes on to point out:

Research on instructional design has shown that the presentation medium does not create learning, but the presentation method does affect learning.

In other words, PowerPoint doesn't teach anything, it is a tool. And if it is used to present information in a way that is not instructionally sound, it doesn't even HELP with learning and may have a negative impact on what we're trying to accomplish!
So, next time you're creating a PowerPoint enhanced classroom lesson, consider the principles put forward by Dr. Mayer for effective use of the tool:

people learn better from words and pictures than from words alone

people learn better when extraneous material is excluded rather than included


people learn better when corresponding words and pictures are presented at the same time or next to each other on the screen

people learn better from animation with spoken text than animation with printed text

people learn better when the material is organized with clear outlines and headings

people learn better from conversational style than formal style