I participated in a survey recently that required me to look over the slides of a powerpoint presentation. Then, a few days later, I was asked to offer my recollection of that content.
While I could not remember the content, I was able to describe qualities about the content was. For example, I remembered that it was entirely text and that the format of the text was similar in each succeeding slide. There were no graphics used at all.
Personally, I think this is a reminder that content delivery does impact content retention. In presentations I give in class, I tend to do the opposite- I provide images/ graphics with minimal text. Rather than read from the presentation, I deliver a “story” or narrative that goes with the graphics. My goal is to appeal to the visual/ audio senses of my audience (high school students). Hopefully, this dual-thread feeding of content will leave enough in the brain to enhance their academic performance.
Here is the link to comments made by others who participated in this survey.
