Learning is most effective when class time is also thinking time. When used conventionally, PowerPoint presentations don’t wholly accomplish that kind of learning.

PowerPoint-based lectures normally make the learning process passive. Although having someone read to you might have led to creative thinking in grade school, it doesn’t always work at the college level. After the first few slides, students’ minds are trained to autonomously follow lines of text and pictures as they appear on the screen.

Gone from the system is the Socratic method, which compels students to ask and answer questions and, ultimately, develop an intuitive process of thinking.

Proponents of PowerPoint lectures claim they can be made interactive at the instructor’s discretion. Five-button clickers are most often cited as a tool forcing students to pay attention to the lecture.

Clickers, however, free students of accountability — missing a clicker question usually results in losing one or two points, if any. Active learning, to the contrary, places continuous pressure on students to follow the process in real time.

In many cases, instructors using PowerPoint don’t do much at all. Instructors’ salaries and students’ tuition and fees are surely worth more than the few hours it takes to prepare a decent PowerPoint presentation. What compels students to go to class at all if they can garner the same informational benefit in half the time by reviewing PowerPoint lectures at their own pace?

There may even be a physiological reason for the loss of focus brought on by PowerPoint-based lectures.

Many classes that use PowerPoint, especially large ones, dim facility lights to improve screen visibility and contrast. The biochemical effect of reducing exposure to light is the production of melatonin by the retina and the pineal gland of the brain, a chemical which has been known to affect the wakefulness center of the nervous system.

The result — a classroom of sleeping or tired students droning through PowerPoint slides and dreaming of cheesecake at lunchtime.

With PowerPoint so ingrained into modern teaching methods, however, it may not be feasible or wise to eliminate its presence altogether.

Instead, we suggest instructors use PowerPoint to supplement lectures, which should focus on making learning involved and interactive.

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