Supplemental materials can be found at: http://www.chss.iup.edu/sjackson/Complx97/
Profile
Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) is a comprehensive university with a doctoral I Carnegie classification and approximately 14,000 students. It is the fifth largest university in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and IUP offers a variety of programs, both graduate and undergraduate, and has traditional strengths in liberal arts and education.
Situation
Many IUP students have only limited opportunities for overseas experiences due to limited time, budgets and personal financial constraints. Political science majors and social science education majors, however, need a broad overview of the politics, economics, culture and society in different countries as part of their major requirements. Comparative politics has traditionally been a difficult course to teach, attracting little enthusiasm by undergraduates.
Solution
Instruction in two courses in comparative politics using PowerPoint?ǬÆ. Presentations were enhanced by photographs from sources such as Microsoft?Ç¬Æ Bookshelf?ǬÆ, Microsoft ClipArt, graphs, charts, video and sounds. Presentation handouts were reproduced as coursepacks and available for students to take notes.
Benefits
Very substantial increases in student satisfaction and enrollments have been registered in the comparative politics courses. Surveys administered to gauge student reaction to the PowerPoint presentation show that students perceive increased retention, grasp of material, organization, and enjoyment. PowerPoint also has a low learning curve, allowing busy instructors to integrate the software in their teaching without extensive retraining.
Microsoft Products Used: Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Bookshelf
Introduction
The question facing higher education is no longer whether to use technology in teaching. The question is now which technologies are most suitable for the myriad of courses taught. Some subjects naturally lend themselves to some technological approaches, such as World Wide Web, and others only with difficulty or not at all. At issue is a complex decision involving student aptitude, faculty innovation and technological choice. This article examines the use of one such technology - PowerPoint - in teaching political science courses.
Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) is the largest of the fourteen universities in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (SSHE), with nearly 14,000 students, twelve doctoral programs and over forty master's programs. IUP's 19th century origins as a teacher training institution for western Pennsylvania are still reflected in the strong education and liberal arts programs, and a student body which tends to come to IUP for a low-cost, high-quality education from modest backgrounds and uneven secondary school exposure to technology. Among the challenges to using technology in teaching at IUP are limited budgets for hardware, over-burdened technical staffs within a decentralized system, and a faculty with a heavy courseload and a large proportion in the senior ranks (full professor).
Comparative Politics at IUP
Social Science Education majors in Pennsylvania are required to take a course in comparative politics as part of the curriculum requirements from the Department of Education in Harrisburg. The result is a core of 75-100 undergraduates per semester in addition to political science majors who take one of two courses in comparative politics: PS280, advanced industrial democracies, or PS285, developing nations. The challenge is to both introduce future teachers to a variety of countries, concepts, and current events within a broad social science approach to politics and area studies, and at the same time familiarize students with one of many new teaching technologies. Since IUP students often come from modest backgrounds, have highly constrained schedules, and often work part time, the opportunities for overseas travel are sometimes limited, yet the need for a broader education about different countries' politics, economics and cultures is imperative.
Teaching with PowerPoint
Both courses have been regularly taught with PowerPoint to supplement lecture and discussion. The choice of PowerPoint as the technological solution was driven substantially by two factors: the suitability of a visual tool to studying politics in foreign countries, and the ease with which PowerPoint can be learned and integrated with existing course material. Comparative politics, the systematic study of domestic political conditions and tendencies in various countries, is ideally suited to a highly visual approach, particularly in imparting to American students a broad overview of the historical, social, and economic conditions which underlie the politics of countries such as Great Britain, France, Germany, the European Union, Japan, Russia, China, India, Nigeria and Mexico. Since the students in question in many cases have not been out of the United States, each unit is begun with a "virtual tour" of the country in PowerPoint, featuring photographs of people and places in the country in question, accompanied by a loop of national music. Clipart from Microsoft and other vendors is extensively used to illustrate the flags, crests, maps, currencies, and landmarks of the country and region. Pie charts are used to express ethnic diversity and budgetary allocations. Line and bar charts are used for economic trends and comparative public policy performance, such as budget deficits, health care expenditures, inflation and unemployment rates. In most cases these can be constructed within PowerPoint itself using the Microsoft Graph 5.0, but in a few instances of advanced mixed chart formats, the charts are created in Microsoft Excel and pasted into the PowerPoint slide. Photographs of political leaders from Microsoft Bookshelf, the World Wide Web and other sources are used to illustrate slides. Short video clips from CNN and other sources are inserted to add variety and a dynamic quality to the presentations. Finally, complex processes can be illustrated easily by use of the Autoshapes. It is also possible to build complex scenario presentations in which students must discuss and choose between difficult alternatives facing poor developing countries, in this case Nigeria. The choices made then branch off to other short presentations which explore the advantages and drawbacks of the choices made by the students.
A further advantage of teaching comparative politics with PowerPoint is that it is now possible to go beyond mere text as the focus of testing and broaden the scope of what teachers can expect students to learn and retain. Quizzes and tests can be presented as a PowerPoint presentation, and ask essay, fill-in or multiple-choice questions, reducing photocopying costs for departments in a era of diminishing resources and increased expectations. Furthermore, a PowerPoint quiz can test students' recognition of leaders, flags, and maps; such a quiz may involve an essay reacting to a chart, graph, or photograph, moving students beyond the goal of grasping secondary knowledge and toward reacting to and interpreting primary data.
One additional advantage of using PowerPoint is the ability to easily produce handout sheets with the bullet points clearly printed out. These were produced in the three-slides-per-page format, allowing students plenty of room to write additional information from class lecture and discussion. These sheets are then photocopied as a coursepack by a local vendor and available to students at the beginning of the semester.
Student reactions to the use of PowerPoint have been overwhelmingly positive. Surveys distributed to students during the semester asked students their reactions to a variety of statements concerning the use of PowerPoint in the classroom, using a five-point feeling thermometer (ranging from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree"). The instrument was based partly on the instrument used in the Wright State University Pilot Project which used presentational software (though not PowerPoint) in general education courses (Sammons 1995: 66-69). Although the reaction in both Wright State and IUP to the use of presentational software was quite positive, reactions at IUP were in most cases higher than at Wright State. That having been said, the much smaller sample size of the IUP experiment prevents any broad comparative conclusions at this point. The results from two semesters of comparative politics (total of forty-seven students responding) are reproduced below.
When asked to react to the statement, "PowerPoint presentations supported the content of the course," 100% of IUP students agreed. In contrast, the Wright State reaction was 88% strongly agree or agree (SA/A).
Table 1: "Presentations Supported Course Content"
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One of the strongest student impressions that PowerPoint, coupled with handouts, increases the organization of class lecture and discussion. This is possibly the result of the availability of the coursepack, though even student who did not purchase the coursepack reacted highly positively to this statement, and 87.5% of Wright State students similarly agreed or strongly agreed. Table 2: "Presentations Made Lectures Organized" |
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The effect of the coursepack on note-taking was also praised by students both at Wright State and IUP, as noted in Table 3. Table 3: "Presentations Helped Me Take Notes" |
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The equivalent number of SA/A responses for Wright State was 76%, whereas at IUP it was 87%. Perhaps the single most important conclusion from the survey was that presentations made the class sessions more interesting, a conclusion shared by 71% of the Wright State students surveyed, and by 92% of the IUP students in table 4. Table 4:
"Presentations Made Lectures Interesting" |
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Other perceived benefits of the presentations included a strong sense that they helped students better understand the materials presented. Table 5: "Presentations Helped Me
Understand the Material" |
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In contrast, the Wright State percentage of agreement was 65% compared to the 87% agreement rate of IUP. Similar reactions to questions concerning clarifying information, paying attention and remembering material also resulted in answers in the 80% range at IUP (though in the 60% range at Wright State). Another strong student reaction was to the clipart, photos and graphics, and table 6 indicates. Table 6: "Graphics, Photos and Clipart Are
Helpful" |
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In their responses to open-ended questions, students mentioned a number of aspects of the presentations that they found useful and enjoyable. One student emphasized the appeal of the system to visual-style learners. "The course pack has helped myself greatly. I am a visual learner and it helps me understand the concepts better. Good job!" This idea was echoed by another student, "I am a visual learner more than an auditory learner so it is helpful to see a visual presentation that gives me better understanding of what notes I should take from the lecture." A social science education major pointed to the graphical aspects of the presentations. "The use of art, graphics, etc. [was] very helpful in presenting the information in an understandable concept. Each presentation was very interesting." The superiority of the color projection system was also mentioned by some students, which in some cases was clearer than transparencies, particularly in the case of photographs. One student stated, "I liked the animation and pictures. On the overheads it was nearly impossible to get a clear picture of what a leader or an area looked [like]. The animation aided in keeping my attention." Several students mentioned that the linking of names and faces was particularly appreciated. One student wrote, "Seeing color pictures, particularly of leaders, was very helpful." Another echoed the sentiment by saying, "I liked seeing the pictures of leaders so I know what they look like." The use of the coursepack of slide handouts was also specifically praised by students. Another social science education junior wrote, "The packet allowed me to pay more attention to the lecture, instead of having to try to take detailed notes. I feel the packet organized lectures and made it easier to understand." Another student commented that, "I could concentrate on the discussion better and organize my notes more efficiently with the presentations." This idea was repeated by several other students. The use of PowerPoint quizzes was also enjoyed by students, one of whom said, "[What I liked most was] The idea that another source was available for meeting course objectives." Another student commented, "Non traditional questions made the quiz more interesting. They made me pay more attention in class." Again, though it is difficult to precisely gauge whether retention was increased compared to other teaching methods, the students' sense of education was increased. One student wrote, "Identifying country shape, flag, etc. makes me feel more informed than I normally would from just reading a chapter in a text." One student wrote that "They made the classes lively; helped me concentrate all the time." Still another student commented "They keep information organized and worded in a way that I can easily grasp the concepts." Virtually all students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement that the PowerPoint quizzes were an appropriate test of the material. Interestingly, informal questioning about the use of PowerPoint for quizzes also revealed that students found the quizzes on the TV monitor to be more legible in many cases than black and white overhead transparency quizzes. |
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The Lower-Tech Solution
PowerPoint is one of many alternatives in teaching with technology. PowerPoint works very well in comparative politics, but is far less suited to a subject such as political theory, where visual elements are limited. Political theory, on the other hand, is ideal for instruction via the World Wide Web, since many of the great books of Western political thought are available in full-text online. What works for one subfield does not necessarily work well in another. In examining the use of PowerPoint as an alternative in technological approaches to teaching, a number of factors should be borne in mind. First, the suitability of the subject matter to a highly visual approach is key. Although PowerPoint can be used effectively without photos, clipart, or charts of any kind, the real attraction of the software is the seamless integration of text and visual elements. Subjects such as art, history, nutrition, area studies, safety sciences, geography, anatomy, zoology, physical education, computer science, archaeology and military sciences all have a wealth of visual elements which are easily inserted in PowerPoint. Other subjects, such as philosophy, linguistics, English composition and law would need much more imaginative application of PowerPoint, since many of these disciplines are highly textual in nature. PowerPoint is ideal for teaching with the case study method, beginning with the "facts of the case" and then turning to the questions and discussion. For other disciplines, such as economics, the challenge is to go beyond the charts and bring additional visual elements that enliven and illustrate abstract principles with concrete examples.
Faculty willingness to learn new technologies and apply them to their teaching is a second challenge in technological selection. PowerPoint has the advantage that it is - for a remarkably powerful presentation package - surprisingly easy to learn and use. That ideal combination of power and ease of use is rarely seen in educational software. Faculty can be easily persuaded that learning PowerPoint does not represent the same kind of learning curve that mastering HTML might. Furthermore, teaching with PowerPoint does not necessarily involve radical changes to teaching approaches, though it can if the instructor so desires. Even as a tool to create better-designed black and white or color transparencies, PowerPoint enforces simple but important rules of highly effective media design in the point sizes of text, bullets, framing, and layout. Once faculty begin to use PowerPoint in this simple way, it is a short step to using PowerPoint as an electronic slide show, where the marginal cost of a new slide is virtually nil. As a simple supplement to traditional lecture and discussion, most instructors see PowerPoint as a simple yet highly effective step forward. Naturally, the technology can be taken much further, and should be, but bringing technology into education is not simply a matter of establishing the cutting edge. As often as not, advancing technology means taking the small steps that introduce new approaches to a broader audience.
The Projection Challenge
The number one challenge to the effective use of PowerPoint in the classroom is clear: the need for effective, cost-efficient, flexible projection systems. This shows up in surveys more than any other complaint. A number of alternatives exist, but there are serious trade-offs in the choices. Linking a laptop computer with PowerPoint to a frame capture or scan capture system which converts monitor images to TV images is fairly cheap, but visibility is limited, making this suitable for smaller classes only. A computer linked to an LCD panel on an overhead projector is a slightly more expensive system, but not only does it require a special highly reflective screen, it also needs a higher-power overhead, both raising the cost of the system. In any case, the image is washed out in all but the most darkened rooms. Ceiling-mounted RGB projectors can show a much better image, but are somewhat expensive and are not portable. These are well-suited to larger auditorium, but instructors who wish to teach their courses with both PowerPoint and cooperative learning techniques which break classes into small groups will find that venue difficult at best. The optimal solution are the LCD projectors on the market, which when combined with a high-performance laptop computer loaded with PowerPoint can give a crisp, visible image for small or large groups, and are portable. This optimal solution, however, is not cheap, and better quality LCD projectors run several thousand dollars. Fortunately, the prices on these devices are dropping, and their flexibility favors sharing them with different instructors or different departments.
Reference
Sammons, Martha C. 1995. "Students Assess Computer-Aided Classroom Presentations," T.H.E. Journal 22 (May 1995): 66-69.
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