Any Which Way but Powerpoint: Motivating and Engaging Learners without the use of slides

The refrain of the modern student has come to be ‘show us the slides’. The belief that learning only takes place when the student has something tangible to look at has become ingrained in the psyche of many undergraduate students and is one that is di cult to ght against (Worthington and Levasseur 2015). The lure of PowerPoint is strong, both in pedagogical terms, where early access to materials is often seen as a positive when supporting students, but also in student satisfaction terms, where providing slides in advance is seen as positive for the student experience, as that is what they expect. Putting a PowerPoint on the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) does not challenge an orthodoxy that has been built up by students and sta since the software replaced overhead transparencies as the visual aid
of choice. Its ubiquity is reinforced by learning theories that stress the importance of information presentation, whilst overlooking the passivity it engenders in students (Hill et al. 2012) and the unwillingness that this causes in students to participate in activities.