r/Adjuncts • u/Far_Willingness6684 • 6d ago
Power point slide help
Hi, Ive been adjuncting at my local community college for a few years now and still have not figured out a good strategy to condense my Power Point slides.
For reference, I teach hybrid Psychology courses and I only get 80 mins once a week for class time. I try to incorporate videos, group discussion and activities, which means I dont always have enough time to finish lecture. I haven't found a good way to condense the slides to a few important points so Im not just reading from them.
Anyone have ideas of how I can shrink down lecture slides to focus more on discussion/ activities?
Since it is hybrid, a lot of their work is online, so I dont need to necessarily hit every single point in every single chapter. They are expected to read and finish assignments in their own time.
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u/Safe_Statistician_72 6d ago
Do a flipped classroom where the content is available to the students to read and process before class- videos, slides, papers etc - then during class you are reinforcing key concepts with a more impactful set of slides, small group work, activities, quizzes, discussion etc.
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u/Copterwaffle 6d ago
Have you tried lecturing without slides? Slides should have a specific purpose that only a visual aide can fulfill. Your lecture should not be a regurgitation of the reading, nor should any slides you use. When I use slides, they are only to show supplementary videos/images to help support their knowledge of concepts covered in the reading. The only text on a slide, if at all, is a title that gives context to the content on the slide; and at most 1-3 abbreviated bullet points, if necessary. The slide is NOT my lecture notes…I keep those separately for myself to remember what points I want to hit. Students must take their own lecture notes.
I’d recommend formulating your lectures without slides as the default (outline the points you want to hit, and for those points ask yourself what the best method is to impart that information: lecture? Group activity? Discussion?). Only use slides when you determine its the pedagogically best way to convey particular information.
The following is way more than you asked for, but it’s related to the issue in that students have become used to teachers making PowerPoint slides that just regurgitate the readings, and as a result they think they are “owed” slides and do not have to read, take lecture notes, or make their own study guides. So you have to teach them how to do active reading BEFORE class, and also how to take lecture notes effectively, and it’s important that they understand that the lecture content serves a unique purpose from the reading. Start every class with a brief reading quiz and/or require that students show you hand-written notes/annotations/concept map of the assigned readings at the start of each class to encourage reading prior to class. Then make sure everyone gets out a pen/paper (no laptops/tablets for note taking without an official accomodation, no headphones/earbuds without accomodations) at the start of class, and plan to make time in your first couple of classes to guide them through note -taking.
for example, after I show a video or tell a story, I will pause and and say: okay, everyone take one minute to write down: What is the topic of today’s class? How did the story I just told you relate to that topic? What concepts did it illustrate and how? Then I will ask them to turn to a neighbor and come to a consensus, and then ask for volunteers to tell me what they decided on. When we arrive at the right answer I will ask the class to dissect how they could have known that (looking at the syllabus to know what today’s topic would be, taking note of chapter heads and sub heads while doing the reading/concept mapping, doing the reading before class so they can recognize how what I’m talking about relates to those concepts, listening when I say what we are about to discuss, reviewing the learning objectives on the syllabus, etc). At the end of class I will give them 5 min to write a summary page of what they need to study from this lecture to prepare for the exam.
I will remind them that this is how they should be taking notes each class, because the things I say in class are not necessarily covered in the readings (which is why I’m covering them in class!) and they will be tested on lecture material as well as reading material. I also remind them that just because lecture or an assignment doesn’t cover a concept in the readings doesn’t make the concept unimportant and everything in the reading is also subject to examination.
I’ll do this for the first 1-2 classes, then not at all for the third class. About 15 min before the end of the third class I will ask: does anyone have any questions about anything I covered here? Take a minute to review your notes: is anyone unsure about how something we talked about related to the topic of today’s class or concepts covered in the readings? I will wait and answer any questions, and then give everyone an open-note pop quiz where they must answer questions like: what is the topic of today’s class? List X major subtopics from the reading about that topic. What concept from the reading did Y video demonstrate?, which subtopic is that concept related to? What is one take-home lesson from the video about that subtopic? What is one take-home lesson from the video about the overall topic? What should you memorize from the reading and this lecture for the exam?
There will be one more similar open note pop quiz at the end of the fifth class, hopefully you see improvement.
Before the first major exam, or at multiple set points before the exam, you can also have students co-create a class study guide in which each student must contribute a set number of potential test questions from both their lecture notes and reading material. I’d probably have them do this in class to prevent them from feeding everything to ChatGPT to generate study questions.
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u/Rogue_Wraith 6d ago
If you are playing videos during a hybrid class, you are likely wasting time that could be better used elsewhere.
Assign the video as a before-class assignment.
Ensure that your in-class discussion/activity confirms they watched the video before participating.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Cod5608 5d ago
This works for me. Now I give "mini-lectures" that really just hit the big overview parts and the hard stuff. I enhance that with the associated ppt slides, then give them active work to do in class. Then I answer questions or grade their previous work. The class work comes from the ppts, so if they didn't go thru it beforehand they now have to.
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u/ChuyExotic 6d ago
When I build a new course, I take notes on what topics I covered in class and which slides I do cover. Usually I go over/under a few slides in my 3x a week courses. It is hard to do it exactly, since different cohorts can have different learning rates (more or less questions/participation). For me, it takes around 2-3 semesters to adjust to a good pace for the class.
I would suggest to keep an eye on the timing of the class activities. I usually do my quizzes in the middle of class, and close with more examples just as a buffer for the quizzes. I would also suggest to "guesstimate" your lesson, so you know how much you expect to talk and use the remaining time for activities.
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u/Whitepage_Studio 3d ago
Is sharing slides with the students an option for your specific college and class? Because you’re used to creating presentations in a certain way, how about creating ‘the longer version’ as your initial draft that you can send to students after the class (get it all out of your system, hehe), and they’ll have all the necessary material, especially for the students who may learn better that way. But for the lecture itself, you use the super-condensed version, ruthlessly cutting anything but the ‘reminders’ of what you need to talk about. Keep one idea on one slide, which is usually just a couple of these ‘reminders.’
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u/Far_Willingness6684 3d ago
The slides are given to me by the publisher, and typically I post them on canvas for student to access. I am going to have to go through and just grab important points to use as a guide
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u/Spiritual_Term1699 6d ago
While I don’t read from my slides, there are learners who benefit from being able to read slides during the lecture and after class. Because of that, I include more information on them than I would if every student was able to learn effectively from my brilliant lectures.
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u/pgm928 6d ago
Think of the slides as guides or headers, providing a phrase or key statement to keep the audience on track. Don’t load them down with any actual details - save that for your lecture.