The Great PowerPoint Disaster

One of the frequent complaints about academics is that they are only interested in their research and neglect their responsibilities to their students. Academics of this kind undoubtably exist, and I have no problem with them. Universities would be a lot more efficient if staff were allowed to specialise in what they do best (or, more precisely, in areas where they have a comparative advantage). There is no point in getting top class researchers to run courses or carry heavy teaching loads. They do, however, have a responsibility to tell the rest of us what they are up to. The best way to do this is to a plenary lecture once a term on new developments in their field. Other academics should be allowed to specialise in teaching if this is what they do best. Teaching, rather than the commercialisation of research, is the most important form of ‘knowledge transfer’ in higher education: without effective teaching in universities, the quality of professional skills in society will decline generation upon generation. We will have wonderful technologies, but no-one able to use them.

Whether academics are more effective in research or teaching is in part a matter of personality. Research usually involves long hours of solitary work and therefore tends to attract more introverted people. Teaching, on the other hand, appeals more to extroverts and the best lectures are a sort of performance art. Extrovert or not, it requires great skill and commitment to lead students into a complex field so that they understand not only its complexity but also the areas in which knowledge is still uncertain. There have traditionally been several ways in which good teachers have achieved this. One is to start by posing a question, and then to look at alternative explanations, their strengths and weaknesses. Others may use a narrative approach, or start by presenting a simple overview of the topic and then progressively adding more complexity.

However, despite the best efforts of academic staff, I have an impression that our lectures have deteriorated in the last decade. I think this is because they have become dominated by PowerPoint technology. No other single invention has done as much to destroy learning as this accursed programme. Instead of analyses and systemic explanations, lectures with PowerPoint have become lists of bullet-points read from a screen. Some teachers enliven their slides by inserting pictures and animations, but PowerPoint has produced a generation of graduates who think knowledge comprises lists of facts. I can see the impact of this in the various government reports I read in my area of study. Where there was once coherent analysis and argument (in sentences and paragraphs), there are now repetitive bullet-point lists. For instance, the most recent Government policy report on intellectual disability (called ‘Valuing People Now’) includes nine bullet-point lists in its Executive Summary and 70 in the main text, all in 136 pages. Bullet-points are interspersed with pictures, personal stories, and examples of good practice. These are all entertaining, but the report glosses over the problems involved in living with a severe disability, and the dilemmas experienced by those who support disabled people on a daily basis. Bullet-points, however neat they look on screen and page, provide a weak basis for effective government action.