Designing learner-centered presentations

As I discussed recently, too many educational sessions in medicine are ineffective. Most of the educational sessions I've seen aren't true presentations, at least not according to my definition:

A "presentation" is a deliberately planned educational activity that incorporates ample opportunity for learners to immediately apply and reinforce new knowledge.

In contrast, a "talk" is nothing more than a speaker or teacher droning on, typically zooming through far more material than any learner could hope to remember afterwards.

Even if delivered by an engaging speaker, talks don't result in any meaningful information gains for learners. Think back to the last talk you attended; even if it was just last week, I bet you can't recall more than 1-2 facts from it (and if you've got 1-2, you're doing better than most).* Adult learners simply aren't wired to memorize reams of facts without context and/or without the opportunity to apply those facts to concrete examples. Even the most motivated of adult learners will struggle to take away something meaningful from observing a talk.

The solution is to incorporate learning activities into educational presentations. Here's one relatively fool-proof presentation formula (warning: this formula will not work if your presentation objectives are weak):

• Introductions; review presentation objectives
• Teach content re: objective 1
• Learning activity re: objective 1
• Teach content re: objective 2
• Learning activity re: objective 2
• Teach content re: objective 3
• Learning activity re: objective 3
• Wrap-up; questions; evaluations

The learning activity should directly correlate to its learning objective. So, if one objective is to "List the four types of allergic rhinitis," the learning activity might be to identify which of the four types applies to various patient scenarios, thereby reinforcing what the four types are along with their definitions. If a second objective is to "Describe the classes of medications available to treat allergic rhinitis," then the learning activity might be to match various allergic rhinitis medications with their mechanism of action. 

Each learning activity should fit with the objective's place on the Bloom's taxonomy pyramid. Here are some suggested learning activities for each step of the taxonomy, from top to bottom:

Creating: create a new process or workflow, brainstorm solutions, write/paint/reflect on a recent patient/peer encounter

Evaluating: rate the quality of a group of clinical trials, assess the pros/cons of an office/hospital workflow

Analyzing: categorize disease types by severity, compare and contrast different treatment approaches

Applying: calculate sensitivity/PPV/NNT/etc, diagram the pathophysiology of a disease/condition

Understanding: interpret diagnostic test findings, explain a medication's mechanism of action

Remembering: recall the typical patient history of a disease/condition, list common physical exam findings for a disease/condition

As you can see, it's often appropriate for your objective to precisely reflect the corresponding learning activity.

Most of the time, when we are teaching medical content, we're working within the bottom 3 tiers of Bloom's. But I challenge you to consider how your presentations might incorporate some of the top 3 tiers; especially in curricula on practice management, quality improvement, medical humanities, and evidence-based medicine, where infinite opportunity exists for our learners to analyze, evaluate, and even create.

* The exceptions to this fact are those rare individuals with a photographic or eidetic memory. 

Giving a presentation? Avoid these common statements

I've listened to a lot of presentations during my time in medicine. Whether as a learner, a teacher, or an observer, I have heard certain statements uttered innumerable times, statements that, frankly, have no place in a thoughtfully designed presentation.

So, here are the Singing Pen's top 3 things never to say in a presentation:

3. "There's a lot of information here, and we'll go quickly, so please interrupt me with questions if you need to."

Unfortunately, the most common mistake I see presenters make is including too much information. At most, learners will remember 3-4 main points after you're done; decide what those 3-4 main points are (hint: your presentation's objectives should reflect them) and spend the time you have emphasizing them. For example, you are not going to be able to cover every single kind of cardiac arrhythmia or every possible type of shoulder injury in 60 minutes. Focus on the key points you want learners to internalize.

FYI: Letting your audience know your preference about interruptions for questions is a great practice, just not when it's said to mitigate your unfocused, bloated presentation.

2. "I got these slides from..." or "I first presented this at..."

It's perfectly fine to adapt others' slides from past presentations into a current presentation as long as you have the creator's permission. But the key word is "adapt." Plopping slides created for one group of learners into a session for another, different, set of learners is fraught with peril. It's highly unlikely that someone else's slides will perfectly fit the needs of your learners, and you risk distracting your audience by skipping unnecessary slides or going off on tangents. Keeping your audience and your educational goals in mind, edit and adjust those slides so that they meet your learners' situation. And, for heaven's sake, put the correct date on the title slide while you're at it.

1. "This slide is hard to read..." or "There's a lot on this slide..."

You have the responsibility as the presenter to create slides that are not hard to read. Yes, many of the concepts we teach in medicine are complex, but an overly complex slide is not going to transmit that information effectively. Don't try to stuff too many words or diagrams on one slide; usually this problem can be fixed by splitting the information into multiple slides and/or thoughtfully using animation to bring in content in a step-wise manner (to avoid looking gimmicky, the only animations you should be using on a regular basis are "appear," "fade," and "disappear").

Unfortunately, the vast majority of medical teachers have never learned how to create an effective educational presentation. Most repeat what they have seen done by others throughout their career: presentations with too much content crammed into them, slides with zero visual appeal (typically stock PowerPoint headings and bullet points on slide after slide after slide, sometimes with the added "bonus" of distracting background graphics), and a dearth of meaningful activities that reinforce key learning points. Building a presentation that negates the need for these 3 statements is a great first step to giving high quality presentations.

Stay tuned for more on creating engaging, effective educational presentations!