When we teach 15 – 17 year olds, classes have to be interesting and effective. One such effective tool is Presentation – Power Point Presentation – sounds all grand. Rather, getting students to present the content through a PPT is considered a challenging and innovative teaching style.

It is true to a certain extent. But if I encourage students to make presentations where they have to take a stand – give an opinion or justify themselves then the same PPT seems challenging.

Sad fact is that there are very few students who voluntarily agree to these kinds of assignments. PPT makes students excited as long as it is about adding animations to facts or secondary data collected by the students from different sources. There are hardly any students who cite the data they have Collected. If pressed to give an opinion or take a stand – students blindly rip – off somebody’s opinion posted in some blog claim it as their own – leading to issues of plagiarism.

Over the years of teaching, I have realized that an effective presentation is possible only when students read and research on the topic given to them. By researching, I mean reading relevant content from newspapers, appropriate journal or magazines, listening to TED talks , talking to people about the topic or the issue (informal discussion) and carrying out small survey.

Even before researching students have to have a plan or a mind-map of the sources from where they can draw inferences. So, mind- map, diverse research, good comprehension of the content received, framing a rough draft, getting a feedback of the same from a peer/mentor and then presenting to an audience along with their opinion is how PPT assignments should be used in class. The question is do teachers explain all this to students and whether students have enough time in their academic calendar to execute the same and enjoy the process of learning!