PowerPoints and ‘Bullets’ that Can Hurt Your Training Courses

by Cheryl Powell, CEO of Learn2Engage

Slowly Weening Yourself Off of PowerPoints and the ‘Bullets’ that Can Kill Your Training Courses

In this episode of Murder She Listed…we will talk about options other than bulleted and numbered lists to get your teaching point across.

Now, I know this may be a sore spot for some, but you can teach a new topic without listing the key points, descriptions, and even do’s and don’ts for a training topic. The tips I will share today, can apply to either a PowerPoint presentation or an eLearning module.

Here’s an example of a bulleted slide that teaches students how to identify the symptoms of depression in a friend or family member:

Can you think of another way to present this content? Perhaps we could present an image or images (or even video clips) of persons exhibiting these behaviors and have the learner attempt to identify the symptoms? Whether in a conference room meeting or a conference call or webinar, you could call on participants to respond and engage them. Here is an example:

If this were an eLearning module, you could also ask the learner to share a story of someone they knew with depression and the symptoms they exhibited using a text entry box or essay-style survey.

Here at Learn2Engage, we often gain the learner’s attention by applying Gagne’s 9 Events to our courses. For example, as a beginning slide to this course on depression, we would play a news video recounting the death of a famous person suffering from depression who recently committed suicide. (sample shown below)

Another option in teaching symptoms would be to show a video clip related to depression and have them list symptoms based on their observations from the video using text entry boxes. You could then have them click a Submit or Check Answers button to review their entries side-by-side with the extended bulleted list of symptoms, so they can compare answers.

Below is an example of a drag-and-drop label activity for eLearning:

As you can see, there are various ways to teach a new topic without using bulleted or numbered lists. With these alternative methods, you can get the learner motivated, encourage them to ‘discuss’ and ‘share’ a personal story, and engage them in critical thinking and cognitive learning activities.

If would like to learn more about how you can add these and other interactions, such as real-life branched scenarios, into your training courses, get in touch with Learn2Engage today to book a free 30-minute consultation.

About the Author

Cheryl Powell, CEO of GC Learning Services LLC dba Learn2Engage, is in her 22nd year as a Virtual Instructional Design and e-Learning Specialist, with clients all over the US and overseas.

Her industry experience includes Telecommunications, Finance (Mortgage, Banking and Credit industry), Sales, Pharmaceutical, Media, Software Development, and many more. Most of the requested corporate topics revolve around employee development, with topics such as Corporate Compliance, Cultural Diversity, Workplace Ethics, Sexual Harassment and Labor Laws and other HR New Hire topics.

She holds a Bachelor in Business Management, a graduate certification in Project Management, and a Master of Science degree in IT Project Management and has studied the Adult Learning principles of experts and theorists such as Gagne’s (nine events), Maslow’s (hierarchy of needs), and Dr. Ruth Clark, to ensure her courses, presentations, storyboards and modules, engage the learner, utilize the proper balance of white space, text and graphics, and result in high Learner Retention rates.