The evil reign of PowerPoint Lectures

I RN A · Nov 25, 2006

Exactly my point, BSNTobe2009! I travel 70 mi one way, just to listen to another boring lecture. The attendance is mandatory and there is no distance learning. But I love my clinicals and the CI, she is the best instructor I've ever had. She grades hard, takes the points off right and left, but I don't care, since I've been learning a lot from her. Anyway, the first quarter is almost over, only 2 lectures and a final left. I can almost say I've survivied the first quarter of NS.

BSNtobe2009 · Nov 25, 2006

I just chalk it up to another lazy professor that needs to get out of the profession. It is my hot button, and since I'm paying for my education myself, I'm looking at it a whole different way this time around.

I mean, what other job can you work so hard to do so little, and still keep it? I have had professors that it would take them 2 weeks to get us back a test that we took on a scantron!

They are also a good reason, why the education system (on every level) needs to do away with tenure, pay should be based on performance (like any other job), because it is DISSERVICE to teachers who work hard every year in class planning, lectures, and actually, well, TEACH!

agoodusername · Nov 25, 2006

Ok, so this seems to be a HUGE issue...

...what can we do about it?!

We're obviously smart enough to figure this out if nursing school is boring us...any ideas??

augigi, CNS · Nov 26, 2006

Do an online course and save the gas money!

Kemccanha · Nov 26, 2006

At least you guys have blanks!
We're lucky when there's a line of notes next to the slide. All too often, too, the professor tries to put a nifty, highly-detailed picture on a slide, one with captioning in some tiny font, and on the screen it looks great and you look down at your B&W copy and see this big ink Rorshock-style smudge that doesn't resemble the actual picture at all. Good times!

:yeahthat: I get so bored out of my mind I find myself drifting off! Our professor takes attendance, let me tell you, if she didn't I'd be just taking my driving time and class time and studying the powerpoints at home. After all, all she's doing is reading them anyway. One more semester left for the powerpoints and I hope to never look at them again! :sleep:

EmerNurse, BSN, RN · Nov 26, 2006

Most of my instructors were the "put it on a slide and read the slide to the class" types. And we had copies of all the slide lectures at the beginning of the semester! At least I didn't have to feel guilty skipping class if I was tired (worked fulltime).

My other pet peeve regarding PP lectures is this: PLEASE spell things correctly and use correct grammar!!! Deep down, I'm a grammar nazi (is there a 12-step for that?) but I do not let it come out except in professional communication. PP lectures presented to a class need to be done properly. Come to think of it, flyers hung up at work and emails sent by admin should also be spelled correctly and use proper grammar.

Geez, that got off topic didn't it. LOL.

CuriousMe · Nov 26, 2006

PowerPoint is not evil, it's just a tool. The only difference between a bad lecture with powerpoint and a bad lecture without powerpoint is that with powerpoint you have a copy of the outline the prof is reading from. All things being equal, I'd rather have the copy of the information.

I don't believe that PP makes Professors lazy. Sure, there are lazy Professors that use powerpoint.....getting the slides ahead of time just points out the folks who only read the slides out loud as a lecture. So, it could be said that PP only identifies lazy Profs.

Personally, I love having the PP slides ahead of time. I have a tablet PC (a laptop that I can write on the screen with a stylus). So, I can import the full slides to my notebook program and write notes on the actual slide.....very helpful. I understand more in lectures if I don't have to struggle to write everything down, it seems that my brain can either listen for comprehension or write down what's said, but not both.....so PP slides work great for me.

The other thing for me anyway is that if I'm sitting in lecture and a concept is glossed over that I don't get.....I ask questions. That generally forces the Prof to go beyond her slides.

Oh and btw, I'm not in NS yet....just doing my prereqs....having the slides for my science classes has been great....the images in the slides are sooooo much better than my badly drawn graphics would be.

Peace,

Cathie

PANurseRN1 · Nov 26, 2006

I hate pp. Why even bother going to class if the professor emails you the pp lectures and then reads straight from them during class? I had one like this. No blanks, just notes and he read directly from them. I don't want to memorize, I want to learn and retain. If you memorize you hold that info for a short time. I like to hold my info for longer periods.

Why bother? Because that may be the day the instructor relates information not on the PP presentation that would be useful.

I honestly don't understand this mentality of not going to class. Exchanges of ideas and questions happen in class. Leaving all that aside, if you don't even have the self-discipline to go to class, maybe nursing isn't the right profession for you.

The future of nursing is looking mighty scary lately.

StudentNurseAbby · Nov 27, 2006

Does anyone else feel like their nursing education has been hijacked by Microsoft PowerPoint?

Absolutely! THANK YOU!

I'm so frustrated with nursing school for this very reason. I've had to adapt my note taken and study habits around foolish Power Point lectures and it's been VERY challenging for me.

JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP · Nov 29, 2006

OMG this describes my cell bio class to a T. Pretty much 75% of the class has stopped going to lectures; I always do a double take at exam time to see how full the room is! She also does not speak English very well so if there's any deviance from her scripted lesson she can't really formulate an explanation. I'm also appalled by her ignorance of basic science - she tried to use photosynthesis as an example of matter created out of energy--huh? And insisted that there's no difference between enthalpy and entropy.

Oh my gosh, I hated PowerPoint. I remember when teachers first started using it when I was a freshman in college and I wanted to strangle Microsoft for it back then. Teachers have gotten so lazy! A lot of my teachers would just make an outline of the textbook chapter, read it out loud to us, and call it a lecture. The only teacher I actually remember stuff from was the one who didn't use powerpoint at all (thanks heavens that was med/surg). All of the other teachers would make fun of her because she "obviously didn't know how to use a computer." It was always the PowerPoint teachers who wouldn't be able to answer a question. Sooo evil.

nurseabc123 · Nov 29, 2006

Maybe I'm the only one, but this is bothering me enough to ask:
Does anyone else feel like their nursing education has been hijacked by Microsoft PowerPoint?
I feel like I sit in all of my senior lectures and am fed notes-page after notes-page of fill-in-the-blank format PowerPoint-ed information. My brain isn't required to think about anything besides listening at the moment when my professor says the next "blank," so that I can quickly fill it in and get back to la-la land. If the notes are handed to me/e-mailed to me before class and all that I am doing is filling in the blanks and listening to the professor READ, yes READ exactly what is on the page before me for two straight hours...what is the point?! I usually end up teaching myself all of the info for tests/practice, and although I'm doing well on exams...I feel like I'm paying A LOT of money to teach myself nursing.
I used to think that I was studying at a very reputable nursing school, and everywhere I have worked -- in clinical, externships and all healthcare fields in the area -- I've heard nothing but positive feedback about the nurses that come out of my program. But most days, I feel like I'm back in junior-high before I learned how to take notes (even in high school it wasn't this bad)....or even worse, bored in church, filling in preacher-made outlines just to pass the time.
This is just silliness and I'm not sure what to do about it. Anyone experience similar brain-numbing, bored-out-of-your-mind fill in the blank lectures??

I wish that were the case! We do problem-based learning (PBL) and everything is case studies. By the end of the semester, I have successfully taken probably about 5 pages of notes total. Basically we are just quizzed off the text. Power points would be much easier.

cherokeesummer · Dec 1, 2006

I like the power point to some extent but I get frustrated when the teachers don't add to it. If they just read verbatim then I can do that at home. The teachers I prefer are the ones that add to each slide with more detail or a story/scenario that gives an example.