The evil reign of PowerPoint Lectures

[agoodusername]

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??

[jjjoy, LPN]

Powerpoint wasn't in such mass usage when I went to NS, but I still found many lectures to be pointless in terms of education. In school, they kept harping on us to "use your critical thinking skills" yet never engaged them during class.

Lectures essentially glossed over the hundreds of pages assigned for that week. Physiological problem and cursory pathophys, signs and symtoms, diagnostic tests, medical treatment, nursing care, patient education; repeat ad nauseum. For all of that, they almost never related any real-life nursing experience with these conditions and types of patients. Questions were limited to "course content" in other words, any questions not answered specifically in the book wasn't answered. I learn just fine by reading so found lectures to be a waste of time, but mandatory to pass.

I ran across courses like this in other fields. I hated any of those 100+ classes where the lecture might as well be on videotape for all the interaction you got by being class (just the added distraction of noisy classmates, an uncomfortable seat and a ridiculously small desk surface). Nursing school was frustrating in that it seemed that every "applied" nursing class was that way. It's like they had so much content to cover to prepare students for the NCLEX and to meet whatever course content regulations there may be to be certified as a nursing school that practical information was almost never covered.

[Chaoticdreams33, MSN, RN]

Personally I like the powerpoint lectures IF the instructer know how to do a good pp presentation. By good I mean that they are not just reading what is on the slide. I think when they prepare slides as an outline to what they are going to discuss, it works, because then we have the outline and we listen and take notes on the details. just my opinion.

[CinnScorpStudent]

To me, powerpoint is the worst possible way to learn material. It might be great for that "nintendo" crowd but I don't see why I should bother to attend a single lecture when all they do is read the slides I've already read and then hand out a multiple choice test we're supposed to spit out information on...in my opinion (and history shows this well) people learned much better when a professor came into lecture, grabbed a piece of chalk (or dry erase, that's acceptable) and started scribbling at a HUMAN pace (not clicking through slides) and when something wasn't understood, you'd see a few hands....lecture stops, questions are asked / answered then you move on. Case in point, last quarter had a prof that used nothing but dry erase, every lecture, not ONE powerpoint slide. She skipped parts of the book material that simply wasn't relevant to her tests and concentrated on real problem solving...ACED the final exam with 100% (go me!) but...next sequence of class (II) new prof....ALL powerpoint slides, 6 hours worth so far just to cover what I just aced on that final exam, there were over 90 slides, (ok....what's important here....was like watching an infomercial) and a quiz given at the end...the quiz was multiple choice, I was totally LOST !!! Now, how can I get a B on material that I had just recieved previously the ONLY 100% in my entire class on a comprehensive exam that was all problem solving, NO multiple choice in a classical setting to getting a B on a fricken' multiple choice test where TONS of material (about 7 slides out of the 90 were even relevant to the quiz) was thrown at me?

Seems to me, this is an online class that you MUST attend in person just to have a body there to be paid to teach one how to repeat (not THINK or LEARN) about the information being presented....I'm highly disappointed at the lack of cohesiveness in the department for allowing one professor to teach true thinking skills (and I learned a lot last quarter) and another to just blow off what should be their JOB and present this useless crap!

Powerpoint education is furthering the dumbing down of education, catering to the lowest common denomenator in classes. My "B" by the way was far above the class average...low C's...unreal ! They call this college these days? Give me the old school type and a hot mug of coffee and I'm ready to go, powerpoint is lazy, disorganized teaching at best, at worst it confuses those of us that wish to actually learn what our subject matter is instead of just passing tests.

[That Guy, BSN, RN, EMT-B]

Well our school has taken an approach of self directed learning. Words cannot describe how furious this makes me. I would seriously rather smash my hand with a mallet 6 hours a day than to sit through lectures that you just described above. It seems like it is a cop out for not so great teaching to me.

[cursedandblessed]

i also have a love/hate relationship with power points. don't read them to me! i can do that myself. since we have a different lecturer each time, you never know what you're going to get. i go to class on most days because you never know if you're going to get the one who tells you to "mark this slide for the test" or tells you to ignore this one, or adds stuff to it that "you really to know this".

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

Personally, I prefer having to take notes than read PowerPoints. It makes me think. The problem with PP is that many of the instructors will just read off of them vervbatim and add little to no new material...at that rate, just give me the handout and let me go home to read it!

[NurseLoveJoy88, ASN, RN]

I love powerpoints ! It all depends on how the instructor use the powerpoints. My favorite type of powerpoint is when there is general info. we need, but there are also practice nclex questions through out the ppt. or either at the end of the ppt. I love my instructors that does this. This class we are getting our ppts. before all of the classes, this really helps. This helps me to stay on top of the material and really get prepared for lecture. When I've already taken notes and read before class, all I have to do in lecture is listen. I also make sure all of my fill in the blanks are done before class as well. I really like the powerpoint though. I know of some nursing students who only used the powerpoint and never read the book that made it through the our nursing program. I know others who never used the powerpoint and still was successful. It all depends on what type of learner you are and how the instructor use the powerpoint. I have one instructor now who don't use the powerpoints and I hate going to her lecture. She will spend an hour and a half on assessment data for a disease and only one hour to go over the pathophys, tx, nursing int. , s/s, and etc. for 5 diseases. To me she needs to use the powerpoint to stay on track. Me personally, I love the powerpoint.

[jjjoy, LPN]

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.

A prof with a lousy lecture using PP probably had just as lousy lectures without PP. If all the profs are using PP and all the lectures are lousy, the PP may look like the common factor. But I wouldn't blame the PP for the widespread perception that nursing school lectures aren't very useful.

Another possibility is that the ridiculous amount of content supposedly covered by the various modules of nursing school. If the instructor is supposed to cover 400 pages of reading in 3 hours, and has to show some evidence of this, then the cards are stacked against them in regards to presenting an engaging lecture.

[Bettie P]

one thing i have learned...the inventor of powerpoint should be condemned to an eternity of watching foreign-language powerpoint presentations being delivered in a droning monotone whilst simultaneously having his or her genitalia chewed by rabid badgers. at least my nursing instructor has the good sense to avoid filling her slides with twenty different fonts, animations and annoying sound effects.

one amusing school note...my nutrition instructor still uses an overhead projector. i almost expected our homework to be printed on an old mimeograph machine, using that distinctive blue ink. remember how those worksheets and crossword puzzles smelled? ah...memories of third grade...

[ksrose1]

Hey at least you get something....my professor just spends time talking about his life, his family and Los Perisis (a power plant the city is wanting to put in) and doesn't really "teach" us anything....try taking a test with that.

[JeanettePNP, MSN, RN, NP]

Hey at least you get something....my professor just spends time talking about his life, his family and Los Perisis (a power plant the city is wanting to put in) and doesn't really "teach" us anything....try taking a test with that.

Sounds like my A&P II teacher... All he did was talk about his job as an epidemiologist in the Department of Health. Would have been interesting, except that the subject was A&P, not Micro. By the time he got around to talking about the course material, he'd just dictate lecture notes verbatim in a boring monotone.

[LucyRose]

I have nothing useful to add but I do need to say thank you all!!!! I thought I was the only one. I'm so sick of being read to. Especially by instructors who don't read well!!!!