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Do people seriously do this??

This is a good rule of thumb, I think that is why the visual on the page is so important to help quickly understand the content.

I really like this as well. I have such a difficult time figuring out what text to include. This will definitely help me to minimize and focus on what's really important.

This is a good point when thinking about trying to get closer to the "six words per slide" rule. Keeping in mind the key details can help decrease the use of words that are not needed.

Great idea! After deciding the important details on a slide, rather than just including those find a visual that represents what the bullet points would have siad. The presenter will still have to explain what the visuals mean, but that should happen anyway, much bettter than sentences next to bullet points!

I like this, but also wonder if it is too noisey. Do you think it could be divided into several slides of reasons, or does that become too many slides?

I'm embarassed to admit this, but it had never occured to me to prepare a handout other than a copy of the slides until this course.

So, this example is pretty extreme in how bad it is, but I'm really starting to dislike anything clipart. It seems it is never appropriate.

Wow. This anecdote makes the point very clear: The presentation is to aid the presenter, not replace the presenter.

Another issue I have seen with color is the projector. I have seen a lot of pretty presentations that were turned horrible by the projector. My principle was trying to promote some school spirit and had his slide in school colors (purple background and yellow text). Purple backgrounds were turned pure black when projected. It looked ok, but the point was completely missed. I think it is important to keep it simple and test it out if I can before I give it to help prevent that issue. 

This makes me think of my dear education professor in college. He was 70 something and loved teaching. He tried so hard to keep up with the times, and he must have had someone show him the audio buttons because every slide in his presentations would have a different sound effect. It wasn't really engaging, just annoying. But, we all knew how hard he worked and that he truly loved teaching. 

This view will also be more effective without all of the bullets and large chunks of text. 

This is one of the biggest struggles I have will use full background images. The text doesn't pop like I want it to. I like the idea of adding in the transparent box. 

This is where I feel I get stuck. I want them to be more engaging then this, but I also don't want to have simply concept pictures. 

I think this would be really effective if you reveal them as you talk about them creating that flow of content. I know when I first looked at this slide I started to try and understand the meaning of each photo. I would have to force myself as an audience member to wait for the presenter to explain them. 

Good to keep in mind. It is not about you or the images you choose, or the words we use. It is about the audience and having them on the journey with us.

I am excited to present with this point in mind. I know it will be different, but I think it will be a good different.

I am still thinking about this. How much is too much? This statement of what you might see on the evening news is helpful. I do think some animation, like fade, does make it flow and perhaps more interesting, but you can definately have too much of a good thing.

I have certainly been gulity of this. How small can I make the font to get it all to fit on one slide. Find the main message and clear away the rest.

Keep it simple. Over and over, probably the most powerful message throughout. I really think they made the point with the bill board analogy.

Very good point. On Wednesday when I presented I had a very minimal powerpoint, 12 total slides for the hour. But I was talking, sharing stories, had humor, and had plenty of table discussions. Slowly I can get better at this

Great example. Rather like painting. You want to have the eye move from one spot to the other, dicovering your message as they go. Nice!

I think this is important for images as well as text. I need to keep in mind that sometimes just having the words on a slide can be as powerful as an image.

We always need to keep in mind that the presentation and slides are for the audience, not the presenter. If we need a teleprompter than we don't know the material enough to be presenting.

I'm learning slowly. This morning in a presentation, I still had one slide that was heavy in text. For a split second I almost starting reading, but then I paused and let staff read it to themselves. Then we went on. I survived.

Do you need the bulleted list at all in the below slide? The magazine cover would serve as the reminder to both the presenter and audience on the main topics. 

For several years our district required us to use "approved" powerpoint templates. At first I thought they were kind of cool, I was proud of the district for being so professional right! But as I developed more and more presentations, it was sometimes hard to fit all the text on the slides I wanted. Well...now I know better, both the templates and the extensive text are not appropriate. We pretty much use google presentations now so I need to learn more about using blank templates within google. 

It totally understand this and given my art and computer background I know I could do this. However, I am a long way from seeming to have time to do this when some of our presentations are literally being built leading right up to the presentation...Planning is key

So if there are times where it might be ok to use clip art, would it be recommended to use clip art throughout the presentation rather than switching between photos/images and clipart?

Not that I want to use any clip art...

This kind of answers my question from the end of the previous article...consistency is good. 

The white space was one of the things I liked about using Prezi.

I have never considered the amount of light in the room and how that might affect the presentation. I will have to experiment with lights on and lights off to see if I can detect any difference.

really like the simplicity of this slide and how powerful that percentage becomes by enlarging the font and minimizing the amount of words.

How many times have I seen students use the same old graphics in presentations? I need to direct them to other sources, such as some of the ones available through Heartland. How do you help them find unique graphics (or not to be satisfied with using the same graphics as everyone else)?

Agree!

love this term... keep it simple only put on the slide what is needed get rid of the "junk"

Principal of design.... keep this throughout

what an interesting idea... gives the audience a visual and that will stick with them better then reading text

So true but how often forgotten. If your slides can speak for themselves, why are you even there to present them? (a question I often posed to my students in hope they'd speak more off the slides than read them)

This is such an easy fix. A good eye will catch this artful contrast. Creating a good PowerPoint is truly an art. Using stock themes and clip art images is cliche, as stated, and truly detracts from the message.

This is a good rule of thumb to try to embrace. The image should strike the emotion of the audience.

Too often avoided, white space does help to focus the eye. Again, a well planned presentation would recognize this element of design.

It goes back to simplicity - Keep it Simple - Make your message known through the visual imagery and not the extraneous list of bulleted information.

Another good rule of thumb I tend to make my bullets just ideas and never complete sentences, but sometimes they do get a little wordy.

Mine are brief lines, but also way too many per slide.

Great technique to pare down extra words to just what's necessary. An easy technique to share with students also.

Great note-taking tip!

Again, another great idea to limit the text and emphasize the image

This is a great idea as long as you don't overload on the slides.

when we have too many bullets, the audience focuses on them and not on us

expand your verbal information while keeping the number of slides to a minimum

Photographs will invoke much more emotion than animations

Don't use templates. Come up with your own visual theme!

So, use color! Grab your audience!

Use the same font - or at least a minimum of two.

Don't overload your audience all at once. Present in smaller chunks of information.

When giving too much on a slide, you will shut down your audience.

This is important, should help keep students work from becoming to "thoughless". So would you use a rubric to make sure you meet specific criteria, then use another for of assessment to grade creativity?

I think I would include the "creativity" within the rubric if that were part of the grade. I'm thinking that aside from the rubric, students could discuss their papers with a peer and they could also have a conference with the teacher. The verbal assessment would provide the student an opportunity to clarify information and even advocate for specific ideas within the paper.

I've never understood how to "grade creativity." What does that mean?!

I can see how rubrics can help in the writing process, but how can they work in a math class?

Ahhhh, here is the rub; well designed. We know that sometimes in the regular classroom teachers do not have the luxury of time to create rubrics that are well designed.

Yes, that is true. Much easier to make a test with T/F and multiple choice - and easier to grade too!

I agree with both of you. Rubrics need to be well designed if we hope to assess students with any fidelity, but it isn't easy to do that. It takes time as well as patience.

One aspect of "well designed" is time. For me, time is one component of what I see as my "capacity' issue. Do I also have or lack the background knowledge to design the rubric? Am I sure I know the key dimensions/traits to such a degree that I can measure them with validity.

Is it possible to create a basic rubric for writing assignments and edit/adapt to specific topic/assignment? I know I spend hours working on rubrics and then seem to find a paper/project that doesn't fit the rubric quite perfectly. How do you account for work ethic/employability skills (proofreading/grammar) in a rubric?

Yes, this hits the nail on the head; we need students to progress in their thinking and self assessment of progress.

The challenge in this is getting to know the things they will be using to conduct their self assessments.

I think that's exactly why a rubric used this way is so helpful - the students don't have to make up their own self-assessment, but can take their cues from what the instructor says is important.

Amen to all these comments!

Who among us has not experienced this example?

Agree... we always try to guess what the instructor wants, and by the end of the semester, some of us have it figured out, other students never do!

This reminds me of an expectations for a college paper: Answer the prompt as completely and thoroughly as possible. Imagine why he got responses ranging from 1 paragraph to 10 pages single spaced.

Wow, wouldn't this be lovely; producing students who thought statistically! A world I dream of....

I find this a little humerous that the word rubric spawned from directions used in religious services - correlating the seperation between church and state. A little funny I think.

Of course, what scares overwhelmed teachers like myself who are teaching more students and more subjects than ever before with more high-stakes consequences, all while trying to be a wife and mother, daughter and friend, is the perceive time-consuming element of assessing such things!

I have to wonder if our focus on high-stakes test results isn't stiffleing teacher and student creativity? to the point that we only teach what is on the test--and is that all that matters?

Don't tell me this is an argment for high stakes tests good. These tests lead to more creative, authentic instructional methods? Kind of interesting.

I never thought about this. I'm sure this would cause more difficulty for the gifted writer.

I see it even more a problem for the struggling writer.

Gracious, learning is a formula for all children. Teachers are guiding them through a process of aquiring skills and information that people who have lived before think is valuable. I think exploring with blending chalks or oil pastels is a skill my students should have. I show them the ways the chalks can be used. They explore. We do an assignment or two with a rubric. They develop confidence with the chalks, and become independent artists. I think the same is true with writing. Use the rubric as a tool to help the student create a persuasive essay. That essay is not the work of an accomplished author, it is a confidence building experience for the child, a learning step. Wow, look what I just did! A student with an interest or gift in writing will never be stifled by this process unless a poor rubric is used. They will learn what that teacher found to be important and will build their own beliefs on what they learned.

As with any tool or technology, it can be used in positive, helpful ways or destructive ways. The tool, in and of itself, isn't amazing or horrible. It depends on how it is used.

And again...the design should include time spent to involve students in the process

My "capacity" involves both time and content expertise. Am I sure there are not any "don't know what I don't know" issues. Maybe utilizing the community of colleagues as a filter to check the rubric would help me.

I think rubrics are particularly helpful in establishing consistency of assessment when there are a number of instructors trying to grade across multiple sections.

I agree.

Again, I think we know we're right on when it comes to assessment tasks which provide these real-life learning situations. We're to prepare kids for the real world and students crave realness yet it seems to be challenging for us to do in education consistently.

Two challenges I have with real world assignments.  When making something for real the product the students make and the product the client wants/expects don't always agree.  Using a rubric can help but getting true buy in from the students isn't always easy.

Activities that stretch student learning into the higher order thinking and measure more than their ability to recite facts and dates.

By being specific on the expectations of a project, students can take ownership, be creative, and produce quality items. This provides a "pro" because the students are actively engaged.

Students also take ownership and benefit from the critical thinking required to articulate the traits of a high quality product when they help develop the rubric.

The important point is not the assessment tool itself, but that it is a "quality" tool used to measure multiple pieces.

Look at rubric descriptors with your students. Ask them to clarify their understanding: "How would you say that in 'eighth grade words'?"

I agree. This is also important when involving parents in the education process who are not in the classroom hearing the content or language used.

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Engineering is a field that is all about applying what is learned, from building roads to building bridges. I can see how rubrics can be used to score performance based projects.

Everything that Iowa core is focusing on.

I am not sure what state mandated test in Iowa uses a rubric. ITED does not use one to my knowledge.

Sure there are thousands of sites, but are all of them "good". You still need to determine if it is a quality product.

This is something that I am not comfortable at all with. I took one class in college that required one rubric for a project and that was the last I even heard of the term rubric for 1o years. My math classes did not use rubrics to assess so this is new territory for me.

I find that "grading" 600 student's work is just too overwhelming to use a nely srafted rubric for each assignment. In an art room i need to be very flexible with assignments. I may have a paint assignment planned but building activities like an assembly or class picture day may mean that I can't get out the paint that day. The rubric must be easily switched up for lesson changes.

*newly crafted rubric. sorry

Our new art curriculum incluses a rubric for the final assignment in each unit. Of course all art rooms are equiped with different tools and supplies. The rubric requires tweaking to meet the specific assignment I am presenting. The overall goals remain as intended, perhaps centering on portraiture for example, while detail change as to the manner in which we completed the assignment.

This is a major push in our district.