Avoiding Death by PowerPoint

1. Engage students by showing them a set of slides and having them vote for “the best slide” on a given topic. Tell students that the first set of slides you will show are about environmentally friendly farming practices, while the second set of slides is about gender inequality.  However, do not tell students anything about what makes for a “good” or a “bad” slide.  Students will come up with criteria on their own.

2. Debrief the vote by asking students to identify what makes each slide effective/ineffective. Use students’ ideas to create a list of “do’s” and “don’ts” on the whiteboard.  You should also take note of any areas of disagreement.  Your whiteboard may end up looking something like this:

3. Suggest that accessibility is an important criterion for effective slide design (if students haven’t mentioned this already). Have students brainstorm a list of disabilities that may impact a person’s ability to read and understand slides (e.g. blindness, colour-blindness, dyslexia, etc.). Then, explain that PowerPoint has a built-in Accessibility Checker and model how to use it.
4. Share the purpose of the activity. Congratulate students for accomplishing the first objective (identify strategies for building powerful and engaging slides) and tell them that, in the next part of class, they will use the strategies they identified to create slides of their own. 
5. Remind students that creating slides should be the last step of developing a presentation. Presenters should think about their main message, outline their supporting points, revise the presentation – and then start designing their slides. 
6. Challenge students to create one (1) slide based on their presentation outlines, using the strategies they identified.

Have students submit the slide(s) they created for their final presentations, along with a one-paragraph reflection answering the following questions:

• Which principles of effective slide design did you use when creating your slide(s)?
• What changes would you make if you had more time to work on your slide(s)?

This activity is intended as a formative assessment.  You might choose not to grade it at all, or to grade it based on completion.  The most important part of ‘evaluating’ this assignment is to provide students with specific, constructive feedback on their slides.

Some students may have had limited opportunities to use computers during their high school education.  Announcing that you expect that students vary greatly in terms of their slide design skills (ranging from no experience with slide design to near-professional skills) – may help students feel safer asking for help. 

Teachers can invite students to peer-review each other’s slides.  Having to share their work with their peers might make some students feel anxious.  Some students might worry they are not as skilled at graphic design as their peers; others might be stressed by the time limitations on this practice exercise.  Naming these emotions and explaining that they are common and understandable responses might help students feel safer.  You can also remind students that learning to trust themselves and take (reasonable) risks is an important part of being a student.

• PowerPoint Accessibility Checker by Microsoft
• 10 Tips on How to Make Slides that Communicate Your Idea, from TED’s In-House Expert by TED Staff
• Making Design Accessible: Fonts, Color Contrast, and Alt Text by UNC Greensboro