Marines say no more ‘death by PowerPoint’ as Corps overhauls education

[daftandbarmy]

Good... hopefully others will follow the example!


Marines and those who teach them will see more direct, problem-solving approaches to how they learn and far less “death by PowerPoint” as the Corps overhauls its education methods.

Decades of lecturers “foot stomping” material for Marines to learn, recall and regurgitate on a test before forgetting most of what they heard is being replaced by “outcomes-based” learning, a method that’s been in use in other fields but only recently brought into military training.

Marines say no more ‘death by PowerPoint’ as Corps overhauls education

Less lecture, more projects and problem-solving on the horizon in Marine schools.

www.militarytimes.com

 

[brihard]

“WHAT MAKES THE GRASS GROW?”

“.PPTX!”

 

[FJAG]

There's nothing wrong with PowerPoint: there's everything wrong with how its used.

People respond better to visual cues than endless droning by an instructor.

Back in my junior NCO training the lessons were clear. If we have a "hands on" training aid - say a rifle or howitzer - you use that to develop "hands on" skills. Every once in a while you didn't have that - say the organization chart for an artillery regiment - then you have to create some type of graphic that explains it clearly which in my day was a slide made with a grease pencil for an overhead projector or a training film, if one existed.

This phrase:

“No more death by PowerPoint,” Arbogast said. “No more ‘sage on the stage’ anymore, it’s the ‘guide on the side.’”

is just another one of those mantras some bright-eyed staff officer has come up with. Sure, individual or small group mentorship is better than one guy lecturing a 100 man recruit course but where do you find all those guides? How easily will the guide be able to convey that artillery regiment organization concept without some form of training aid.

Stop blaming a useful tool and revisit how efficiently it can be used.

Oh! And kill the guy that came up with this:

 

[brihard]

Oh! And kill the guy that came up with this:

No. Make him brief it, every day into eternity, to a new and perpetually indifferent audience. He will be Sysiphus. This slide will be his rock.

 

[daftandbarmy]

There's nothing wrong with PowerPoint: there's everything wrong with how its used.

People respond better to visual cues than endless droning by an instructor.

Back in my junior NCO training the lessons were clear. If we have a "hands on" training aid - say a rifle or howitzer - you use that to develop "hands on" skills. Every once in a while you didn't have that - say the organization chart for an artillery regiment - then you have to create some type of graphic that explains it clearly which in my day was a slide made with a grease pencil for an overhead projector or a training film, if one existed.

This phrase:


is just another one of those mantras some bright-eyed staff officer has come up with. Sure, individual or small group mentorship is better than one guy lecturing a 100 man recruit course but where do you find all those guides? How easily will the guide be able to convey that artillery regiment organization concept without some form of training aid.

Stop blaming a useful tool and revisit how efficiently it can be used.

Oh! And kill the guy that came up with this:

I think this is the one where McChrystal said "When we understand this slide we will have won the war."

 

[Halifax Tar]

There's nothing wrong with PowerPoint: there's everything wrong with how its used.

People respond better to visual cues than endless droning by an instructor.

Back in my junior NCO training the lessons were clear. If we have a "hands on" training aid - say a rifle or howitzer - you use that to develop "hands on" skills. Every once in a while you didn't have that - say the organization chart for an artillery regiment - then you have to create some type of graphic that explains it clearly which in my day was a slide made with a grease pencil for an overhead projector or a training film, if one existed.

This phrase:


is just another one of those mantras some bright-eyed staff officer has come up with. Sure, individual or small group mentorship is better than one guy lecturing a 100 man recruit course but where do you find all those guides? How easily will the guide be able to convey that artillery regiment organization concept without some form of training aid.

Stop blaming a useful tool and revisit how efficiently it can be used.

Oh! And kill the guy that came up with this:

A mind map, was a component of my ILP. Absolutely junk. Worthless course to be honest. Just a gateway to being substantive and further progression with a weak aim and poor execution.

All of courses could be so much better.

I swear we need to stop hitching our horse to every next big thing that comes along and use what works and produces results.

 

[daftandbarmy]

A mind map, was a component of my ILP. Absolutely junk. Worthless course to be honest. Just a gateway to being substantive and further progression with a weak aim and poor execution.

All of courses could be so much better.

I swear we need to stop hitching our horse to every next big thing that comes along and use what works and produces results.

I use the equivalent of 'mind maps' a fair bit with clients, nothing crazy like those examples of course.

It's a good way to theme out alot of data quickly to identify themes or 'associated bundles' of attributes related to complex projects. Information systems do the same thing, but automatically of course.

I tend to underestimate the skills and knowledge involved in being able to understand when, and how, to deploy them effectively using a facilitated approach. Doing it badly doesn't help, and can turn people off pretty quick.

 

[dapaterson]

I use the equivalent of 'mind maps' a fair bit with clients, nothing crazy like those examples of course.

It's a good way to theme out alot of data quickly to identify themes or 'associated bundles' of attributes related to complex projects. Information systems do the same thing, but automatically of course.

I tend to underestimate the skills and knowledge involved in being able to understand when, and how, to deploy them effectively using a facilitated approach. Doing it badly doesn't help, and can turn people off pretty quick.

Team #FlipCharts and #ColourPostItNotes

 

[FJAG]

I use a Brit software program called "Scapple" to brainstorm my novels. It's like a whiteboard mind map on your computer. Dirt simple to learn; easy to operate; and allows easy transfer of data to my writing program "Scrivener" which comes from the same company. Scrivener, on the other hand, is a powerful and complex writing tool.

The point is that software is an enabler to whatever process you embark on. It can be easy, useful, or hard and incomprehensible depending on how you use it.

I wouldn't consider writing a novel without brainstorming its components, arc, themes, characters, and flow etc in Scapple first.

When I used to do a fair bit of lecturing or briefing I made extensive use of PowerPoint to present the visual cues useful in giving context to my spoken presentation. Hell, I even think it would be useful to show a blown up PowerPoint slide of a trigger group with part names while teaching disassembly and assembly of that trigger group to a room full of recruits or cadets while you and your assistant provide the "guide by the side" function which we've always done anyway since Christ was a lance jack.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

I have received a fair number of compliments recently for the (apparently revolutionary) use of PPT in the following manner:

1) black letters on plain white background; and
2) putting key concepts or phrases on the slide, but otherwise speaking extemporaneously.

I swear to god- that was the basic jist of my instructional techniques course, over 30 years ago…

 

[brihard]

I have received a fair number of compliments recently for the (apparently revolutionary) use of PPT in the following manner:

1) black letters on plain white background; and
2) putting key concepts or phrases on the slide, but otherwise speaking extemporaneously.

I swear to god- that was the basic jist of my instructional techniques course, over 30 years ago…

That’s how I use it, and keep getting told ‘good brief’. I don’t get the need for all the flowery crap people throw on their decks.

 

[QV]

I have received a fair number of compliments recently for the (apparently revolutionary) use of PPT in the following manner:

1) black letters on plain white background; and
2) putting key concepts or phrases on the slide, but otherwise speaking extemporaneously.

I swear to god- that was the basic jist of my instructional techniques course, over 30 years ago…

And to think I do this out of shear laziness. Army.ca is in the presence of genius'

 

[Good2Golf]

I have received a fair number of compliments recently for the (apparently revolutionary) use of PPT in the following manner:

1) black letters on plain white background; and
2) putting key concepts or phrases on the slide, but otherwise speaking extemporaneously.

I swear to god- that was the basic jist of my instructional techniques course, over 30 years ago…

Doing the SIT (School of Instructional Technique) basic instructors course in Borden was one of the best courses I ever took in the CAF.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I have received a fair number of compliments recently for the (apparently revolutionary) use of PPT in the following manner:

1) black letters on plain white background; and
2) putting key concepts or phrases on the slide, but otherwise speaking extemporaneously.

I swear to god- that was the basic jist of my instructional techniques course, over 30 years ago…

Same, I've always been taught brevity and key points or title/subject on the slide then you talk.

I think a lot of how we practically use PPT is probably caused more by people being uncomfortable with public speaking.

I use the equivalent of 'mind maps' a fair bit with clients, nothing crazy like those examples of course.

It's a good way to theme out alot of data quickly to identify themes or 'associated bundles' of attributes related to complex projects. Information systems do the same thing, but automatically of course.

I tend to underestimate the skills and knowledge involved in being able to understand when, and how, to deploy them effectively using a facilitated approach. Doing it badly doesn't help, and can turn people off pretty quick.

I'm sure they have some value, my wife new it pretty solid, she said she's used for her master's degrees, I just found it nauseating and unnecessarily complicated.

 

[daftandbarmy]

I have received a fair number of compliments recently for the (apparently revolutionary) use of PPT in the following manner:

1) black letters on plain white background; and
2) putting key concepts or phrases on the slide, but otherwise speaking extemporaneously.

I swear to god- that was the basic jist of my instructional techniques course, over 30 years ago…

But did you follow these principles of accessibility?

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities - Microsoft Support

Learn how to create PowerPoint presentations that are more accessible to people with disabilities, or who are using assistive technologies.

support.microsoft.com

 

[rmc_wannabe]

I find people who use the "Eye Chart" method of Power Point are usually covering for their own ignorance of the subject matter they're briefing.

You're there to brief the topic, not your slides. Summarize, use them as prompts, and speak to them.

PowerPoint is not a Training Plan or Briefing Note alternative. Don't use it as such.

 

[SeaKingTacco]

But did you follow these principles of accessibility?

Make your PowerPoint presentations accessible to people with disabilities - Microsoft Support

Learn how to create PowerPoint presentations that are more accessible to people with disabilities, or who are using assistive technologies.

support.microsoft.com

I brief people in the CAF.

That is the level of disability that I deal with.

 

[dapaterson]

Templates for common types of briefings are an excellent tool as well, so that format is never an issue - the same info is always in the same place.

 

[Furniture]

I think a lot of how we practically use PPT is probably caused more by people being uncomfortable with public speaking.

I think you're on to something, but I think it goes beyond that as well. We make people "experts" by posting message, and that includes postings to the schools. Rather than talent manage people who have the aptitude and ability to be instructors, we send the person who will take the move and has the right language profile already.

In my occupation's small school I can think of many instructors posted there that had no business being in front of a class. Half of them needed to re-take the class so they might learn the job themselves... Death by PPT is often a throw away line to describe terrible instruction.

WRT briefings, when I was in training, and for the first year I was at the school as an instructor, during practice we occasionally would take away the student's slide deck and make them brief from their notes/memory. We also would take their notes on occasion, to force them to actually know what they were briefing. It produced briefers that didn't rely on just reading slides, but was stopped because some of the "leadership" at the school thought it was too hard on the students. Instead they dumped them into the real world to learn the hard way that nobody wants a 10 minute brief on a P6SM SKC day...

 

[dapaterson]

Best brief I never delivered: with two others, we met the CDS outside his office, he was holding a copy of the brief I had put together and he said "I read it, I love it, let's do it."

Worst brief I ever delivered was about 3 months later, to the DM and CDS, where the assumption of prior knowledge of the issue did not survive the second slide of the deck. Apparently waving away a nine figure cost was not the correct approach.