'Chalk & Talk'

We live in the era of so called “edutainment” in which students and professors expect time in the classroom to be engaging and fun. (As an aside, I am a bit freaked out that spell-check recognizes edutainment as a legitimate word!). A big shift has been the transition toward using Microsoft PowerPoint (or something similar) for presentation of materials. In lecture classes this format has become the industry standard; there are many good things about PowerPoint. For example, its use makes it easy to summarize materials, to add graphs and pictures to lectures, and to provide digital copies of class material to students. Professors spend much of their time outside of class designing and refining slides for course lectures; each lecture is a work in progress.

Back in the day, professors taught differently and classroom expectations were also quite a bit different. It is true that favored professors tended to be entertaining, but it was common for them to simply arrive with their notes (or perhaps no notes) and a piece of chalk. Class time began when they started talking and it ended when they were done. Despite the obvious advantages to new approaches using PowerPoint, there are some definite strengths to “chalk and talk.”

An important one is the rate at which material is presented to the student; professors regularly discuss how when one puts up a new PowerPoint slide, students hurriedly write down the entire slide (if they are note-takers, which is increasingly rare). In so doing, they are not able to listen to what is being said during lecture. That is, it is exceedingly difficult to write and to listen at the same time. During chalk and talk the professor writes much of the material as she/he lectures about it, and the rate and sequence of presentation is directly in step with students’ note taking. Today note-taking is becoming less common; part of the problem is that it is frustrating for students to take notes during a PowerPoint lecture unless the presentation is very well designed.

Other interesting aspects of chalk and talk include that graphics are spur-of-the-moment drawings on the board, that professors are more likely to hand out supplemental material on paper, and that students must take their own notes if they want a record of lecture material. Each of these can be a good thing; for example, on-the-spot drawings are more likely to be copied into notes by students. Supplemental material is more likely to be integrated at a pace that makes sense, and notes are more likely to be a comprehensive record rather than copies of slides. A tragedy in modern education is the lost art of note-taking.

How can professors integrate the benefits of chalk and talk with the advantages of PowerPoint presentations? I use several strategies. First, in most (but not all) of my classes, I reduce the amount of text in each presentation slide so that students can read them quickly and then listen to my lecture. Second, if I really need to make a point that requires their full attention, I turn off the projector and use the board moving at a slow pace. Third, I require students to turn in notebooks at the end of the semester for a part of their grade, and one of the criteria is that full credit will not be given for simply copying lecture slides. Fourth, I do not post my PowerPoint lectures ahead of time because I find that to do so discourages students from taking their own notes. Students do not like this, and there is merit to having the lectures ahead of time. In my opinion, there is greater merit in struggling to take notes in one’s own style. Frankly, good note-taking requires practice, and the more independent the process is the more effective it is. Finally, I also try to find ways to insert non-lecture exercises into class time in some of my courses. For example, focus group discussion-exercises allow students to talk about class material with each other and with me in a different, more relaxed format that complements lecture.

I regularly tell my students, particularly in the statistics course that I teach, that at some basic level it does not matter how the course material is presented or how funny, angry, friendly, scary I am. To truly learn the tough stuff, there is no substitute for their dedication. What college requires is a systematic learning strategy inside and outside of the classroom that includes detailed note-keeping, intense reading, dedicated time to study course materials, and most importantly self assessment so that students can maintain awareness in terms of what they do and do not understand. Under those circumstances, education becomes a partnership instead of edutainment.