318 slides. 3.1.8. Slides… that is what the publisher created for us to use as the lecture slide deck for one of the book chapters in a paramedic course I taught. 318 slides… I still cannot get over it. The kicker is that is was 95% words on a white background or a table from the textbook. Not a ton of imagery the students could relate to or draw context from. Just words… The expectation was that the instructor covers the slides as designed, and in so doing, “educate” adults in some aspect of emergency medical care.
I had no idea how I was going to do that, but I did know that there was no way I was going to read 318 slides to the group. Even if I wanted to there just simply was not enough time in the day to do it that way. If you do the math and spend only 1 minute or less on each slide, that would be ~318:00. A little over 5 hours of “death by powerpoint” for a class day that is only scheduled for 4 hours.
Problems
There are some challenges when we design a syllabus around presentations like this:
1.) Fitting slide presentations of that size into the allotted time for the lecture that day. The instructor either has to “burn through” and “click through” some of the content in order to make the lecture fit into the time slot. Potentially the wrong information can be omitted in the process.
2.) A concept that requires depth (and thereby time) could only receive a superficial coverage, leaving the students in a lurch.
3.) This presentation method is about delivering content within a certain amount of time, it is not about ensuring the students receive the content in a way that they can use it… and learn something.
It is a monumental ask of the student and the instructor to overcome those challenges. I do not want to say it is impossible, but it is unlikely that either will have the success they wished they did. At the very heart of this issue is that we are not dealing with adolescent learners. We are trying to provide information to adult learners. Adults require a different approach. They have to connect to the information and it has to be presented in a way that the student can take in the information and relate it to something they have already experienced in order for them to “learn” it.
Observations
As an instructor/educator I have noticed a few distinct patterns among instructors. At different points in my career I have been or been asked to be one of these archetypes. These are merely my observations of instructors that I have had and others I have taught with.
Cover each slide guy. “Skip nothing” is their mantra. They talk the whole time and stick to the strict schedule of 50 minutes of talking with 5 minute breaks. Meanwhile the students of Guantanamo Bay College Paramedic Program are enduring the torture of this water boarding exercise masquerading as an instructional lecture. The problem with this is that teaching like this exhausts everyone, and there is little chance that any real learning has occurred. The students often just want the lecture to stop, and the only thing they take away from that lecture is “the dude talked too much.” The instructor, usually, is either inexperienced or has no formal training in delivering instruction. The students are of course novices and the combination of the two… well, the results are predictable.
Slides and Stories Guy. The only thing they skip are the words they cannot pronounce and the topics that they do not have a story for. They are well intended with these stories as they are trying to paint a picture of how the concepts/content looks in real life. But… this sometimes becomes another form of educational torture. It’s an overload of story and content. The intent is good, but the execution is not. The instructor likely has some experience out on the streets and has lessons learned to pass on, but again lacks the training and practice as an instructor to describe the relevance of the information. Their stories fall flat and they leave the students with… OK what do I need to know from all of this?
Maverick. Remember in Top Gun: Maverick when Mav throws the ops manual in the trash? Why would he do that (especially with his boss in attendance)? Because he knows that his students already know what is in there. He also knows that there is a difference between knowing the book and knowing how things really are (aka how the book is applied in an operational context). He’s not going to teach pattern recognition. He’s not going to teach paint by numbers protocol. He’s going to test you, challenge your assumptions, and then from there fill in the knowledge gaps. This instructor has already trimmed the fat on the slide deck and reorganized it into something that is coherent for them to follow and deliver while ensuring that it contains what is necessary for clinical application AND cognitive examination.
Less is More
This is about depth and relevance. Every single student has a textbook. Which means that every student already has every word of the publisher’s slide deck in their possession. So there is no need to hit all 318 slides, much less read them word for word.
Step 1: You have to divide the slide deck/information up into “need to know” and “nice to know” categories. You have to differentiate the essential from the esoteric.
Step 2: Rebuild the slide deck to provide context to the need to know elements. Sprinkle the nice to know in as well. Dump the rest. Just because the publisher puts it in the slide deck, does not mean it is useful to the students in a lecture… at all. Remember, they have a book for a reason. A prudent instructor will know what is on the exam and what is not and coach the class on what to pay close attention to.
An argument, that I will concede, is that all of the information is relevant. To a degree this is right and I do agree. But most courses are not structured to provide students with enough time to give their brains breathing room to allow for proper absorption of the content.
Step 3: Structure the content and the deliver to answer the questions like:
What does this look like in the field?
How do I typically manage XYZ?
What is the evidence for the way we do it?
How can it go bad and how can they deal with it?
What is on the exam? (You should study the exam equally as hard as the lecture content).
You have to know how they are going to be tested and ensure here is congruency between what is tested and what you are telling them. I have taught more than one or two lectures where I thought I was doing the right thing, but completely screwed the students by covering what I thought was important instead of the lecture objectives.
Providing instruction like this means there will be conflicts and you have to clearly delineate between CONCEPT and CONTENT so tey don’t get tripped up on the exam. Approaching your classroom lectures like this balance the scales of being successful on the street and success in the classroom.
Close Out
What did I do? I cut that slide deck down to 191 slides… a large portion of them were charts from the textbook for them to know and reference and where to find it in the text. Another portion was significant anatomy review but not a ton of time was spent on that…it’s in the text and there are tons of better anatomy lectures out in the world for them to reference. I spent the vast majority of the time talking about how those particular patients look in the field; a couple of examples of how I manage them; and of course why I do it that way.
This is only “A” way to do this. I lean on this method because I want to give them context to what they are studying and give them something they can use in real life. It helps them relate the information to a real-world context. Which helps them retain it for the exam and beyond.
