WEEK 6 REFLECTIONS

Hi Everybody

During more than I decade I have been using PowerPoint as a essential tool in my classes. I used contrasting colors, not many movements (to avoid distract the audience), an appropriate font size as well as its type. Clear enough pictures for balancing the visual with auditive learning styles. And I had the conception that it was a good presentation and I thought it was interactive too. I was far way of the correct path to have a REAL interactive presentation.

During this week I have learned how to develop interactive PowerPoint presentations through the reading Best Practices in Presenting with PowerPoint - from the UO's Teaching Effectiveness Program and the reading Interactive PowerPoint by Deborah Healey. In these reading I realize what is and not an Interactive PowerPoint presentation that could be useful especially for giving lectures to large classes.

In addition to these presentation this week has been really productive to discuss teaching large classes that it is a common problem all over the world.

I teach large classes and semester after semester I feel that I need more ideas to teach to these groups. Professor Eric Mazur has developed the ConcepTest that mixed with PowerPoint make the classes interactive. Deborah Healey proposes the use of black or white slides to promote interaction in class after a topic or to change the the theme of the lecture. Games, contests, questions are ways to intact with students in a lecture, all of this with PowerPoint help.