Yeah, I wanted to get a whole bunch of stuff into the title and so decided to go full 17th Century with it. But, I’ll make up for the florid title with the post being brief and with 21st Century wording.
I fucking hate PowerPoint.
I really, really hate it. No medium is “just a medium”, and PowerPoint most certainly is not. If PowerPoint does not amount to a script, it is damn close. The entire purpose of Powerpoint is to be regimented and entirely predictable; what you see is what you’re gonna get. And, evidently, way too often, what you see is all you’re gonna get. Intrinsically, PowerPoint is handcuffing for the teacher, soporific for the students and infantilising for everyone.
Which is maybe what one wants. Understandably, many schools lust after or panic over NAPLAN and VCE scores. They see Greg Ashman – since he is seldom out of the news long enough to miss – and they see the impressive results of Ashman’s school, and they want the same. They see Ochre‘s free, ready-to-go lessons and they go for it. Why think further? Or at all?
It is necessary to point out that NAPLAN and VCE, and the insane curriculum upon which they are based, are garbage, and not all of us care about this garbage. There can and should be much more to mathematics, at all year levels, than the vomitous gruel force fed to students by VCAA and their idiot kin, and some of us would very much like to teach this non-gruel. Perhaps that can be properly done with PowerPoint and scripts, and I am very keen to learn more about any such claims, but it is very difficult for me to imagine. Greg Ashman likes to distinguish his primary concern for how to teach from my primary concern of what to teach. The problem is, I do not at this stage believe that Ashman’s/Ochre’s “how” can be properly used to teach my “what”.
If it is necessary to point out that NAPLAN and VCE are garbage, however, it is also not sufficient. This garbage is the official stuff and people can very reasonably care about this stuff, which also, if only by accident, occasionally contains a little solid mathematics. Ashman and Ochre seem to be good for this stuff and plenty of people want it, so fine. Except, many teachers do not want it and, increasingly, they are given no fucking choice.
The developing orthodoxy is “explicit teaching”. Or, if you like, “direct instruction”, maybe. I don’t care what you call it. The Ashman guys care about these terms but their debates bore the crap out of me. For me, it is all just what I would call teaching: be as clear as possible what you want the kids to learn and then have the kids learn it by doing it, with many good and appropriately graded exercises and problems.
Whatever the valuable nuances I may be ignoring, the new orthodoxy of explicit teaching is a very excellent thing. Thank God that the power of the mathematics education cretins, who have held sway for decades, is finally waning. But.
The “but” is that many apparatchiks and principals equate explicit teaching with PowerPoint and scripts, and then they are little Hitlers about it. They wave the flag of “explicit teaching” and then demand that teachers employ mandated PowerPoints, often enough with undeniable “here are your words” scripts. They chant “Ashman” and “Ochre” and “cognitive load” as if these authoritative appeals were unanswerable arguments for their mandates.
Teachers rightly hate this. Good teachers, who have been teaching explicitly and well for decades, rightly hate this. And there is nothing they can do about it, because it is the new fucking orthodoxy. All praise the new church and their wonderful priests.
Ashman and Ochre and their kin have had genuine success, their works clearly have value. I believe that it is all intrinsically limited but, still, there is undeniable value there. But, it is also the case that absolute fuckery is being done in their name and with their products.
Are Ashman and Ochre to blame for this fuckery? The villains, of course, are the idiotic apparatchiks and principals, who cannot or cannot be bothered distinguishing a principle of teaching with a medium for its delivery, and, fundamentally, do not trust their teachers to teach. But it would really help if Ashman and Ochre took some responsibility to be a little less silent about the fuckery being done with appeal to their good names.
UPDATE (12/06/26)
In their latest podcast, Greg Ashman and Caiti Wade discuss the issues of this post and the next.
I don’t understand what’s going on in this post. Most classrooms have both a TV and a whiteboard and you can choose whichever one suits you. Is this about what they’re doing over in the “Catholic” sector?
If a teacher makes their own powerpoints, do you still have a problem with that? If a teacher takes someone else’s powerpoints and heavily modifies them, do you still have a problem with that?
I hate PowerPoint, and I question how much depth can be taught with that medium. With that caveat, if a teacher wishes to use their own or modified PowerPoints, then fine. But there are schools mandating the use of supplied PowerPoints, and not just in the Catholic sector.
Alfven, the school at which I teach has recently gotten wholeheartedly, enthusiastically on-board with Ochre’s … “system”. Lessons are tightly scripted, bound to a PowerPoint sequence, and are awful in every respect. Last year I refused the offer of a junior class precisely because I would have been obliged to use these resources and “teach” the class with them.
Thankfully, having only VCE classes, I don’t have to go anywhere near them, but the minute I’m told that they’ll now be used in VCE classes and thus I now have to use them I’m moving on.
Frankly, your leadership sound like pushovers if they are letting you pick and choose what classes you feel like teaching. What’s to stop you using a few Ochre slides at the start of the lesson, then switching to a whiteboard for demonstrations?
I have talked to teachers who do some of that but are fearful of doing so, or of pushing it too far. Little Hitlers can be pretty Hitlerish.
Coincidentally yesterday I had a look at some Ochre slides. Those I saw were pretty woeful. Reminds me of the saying that I didn’t have time to write a short letter – so sorry – here’s the long one. Perhaps that’s the beauty of the textbook – it forces the writer to be concise and stick to the central points. Modern textbooks while OK, could certainly do with this reduction. The old cost constraints in publishing forced writers to be concise.
As to Powerpoint per se, I use it very sparingly – it can be quicker to put up a diagram so I can write on it (I am a terrible artist). I also use it for presentations on exam prep etc – a picture a slide as a prompt for me with very little text (eg picture of an Olympic event – like an exam so prepare well for it – use familiar equipment etc etc). But on the whole human written text is the way to go – I’m modelling what I want them to do! If forced to use Ochre, I’d select some of their problems and teach them traditionally on the board, while displaying a couple of their better slides every so often to salute the flag.
I’m afraid this jumping on board of every man, woman and their dog is probably inevitable. Many of the modern ‘explicit teaching’ advocates do not even realise that it’s just returning to what has been done for millennia. Hopefully it will settle down.
The UK is ahead of us in returning to traditional teaching – doesn’t seem to be too bad over there from what I am hearing.
Also available are slideshows from the Victorian government, e.g. https://arc.educationapps.vic.gov.au/learning/sites/mathematics-lesson-plans/7349/Introduction-to-trigonometric-ratios.
All stepped out in detail, e.g.
“Display slide 11 and instruct students to self-assess.
Display slide 12. Explain that when only two of the sides are given, we need to choose the correct trigonometric ratio.”
At a school that uses this sometimes. Not mandated, though. Each teacher is free to use what they like.
Yeah, I know of the VCAA stuff. I looked a little and, unsurprisingly, it looked shithouse. Ochre, as I remember, looked better, and I presume Ashman’s is better.
The ARC lesson plans are more than shithouse, Marty. It is a swamp of pure excrement
Edit: sorry, I can’t change me forgetting to add my name, d’oh. This is Fox (a semi-regular commenter)
Thanks, Fox, and thanks for keeping the “anonymous” thing in mind. Is ARC the name for the Victorian plans?
Hey, Marty
I believe ARC is just the name of the platform that hosts all the maths and literacy lesson plans and other random teaching resources
I just refer to it as ARC because that’s what I have been using in emails regarding the maths lesson plans and haven’t been told otherwise yet
I see. Thanks, Fox.
I’m not sure that I understand the point you’re trying to make about PowerPoint. How do you think it is actually being used that is so egregious, and what would you suggest is a more suitable “medium” for having a broad assortment of resources (it’s maths, so practice questions of varying difficulty/scope/focus) ready to go?
Blackboard.
So I am supposed to spend 5-10 minutes rewriting a worded question or question involving diagrams or a table on a blackboard, and you believe this is more effective for student learning than having it queued in a PowerPoint and being able to display it instantly via a projector so I can annotate over the top?
No.
And what are you suggesting I should do then?
Don’t use PowerPoint.
At the risk of entering a debate I wanted to stay away from… I do not think Marty is arguing against schools and teachers having access to resources here.
I think he is arguing against teachers being given specific resources and told to use them.
The difference can be quite enormous.
Thanks, RF. That is certainly my main, huge concern.
As I’ve hinted, I absolutely loath PowerPoint. I was willing to let it be, however, until I got multiple reports of this PowerPoint-based lesson shit being shoved down teachers’ throats.
This is from my most recent Substack post:
“I think Brunker is wrong that schools experience disengagement or some other ‘detriment’ if using explicit teaching. Explicit teaching is highly interactive and most of the teachers who have made the switch will highlight this. But I do think it is possible that schools that are mandated to adopt explicit teaching against their will might find it a negative experience for staff and students, partly because they are unlikely to understand exactly what it is.”
I would like to point out that from my perspective, what Ochre do and what we do are not quite the same. However, explaining why is probably not very interesting. In short, we have a data driven, iterative process for improving the resources over time that you would think was junk.
It’s also worth noting that our projectors sit over whiteboards. We project the PowerPoint slide onto the whiteboard where it usually shows a question. We then write all over it with a traditional board pen or, in some cases, use the laptop stylus. I am sure you would be appalled, but I’m just pointing that out for any other readers who may be interested in how we use it.
Thanks very much, Greg. Yes, I am appalled, but others may not be, and I appreciate your stopping by to add details on your procedures. I am totally fine with your explaining at length the differences between you and Ochre, and I would be interested to read, but of course you are under no obligation to do so.
Your blog post noted “schools that are mandated to adopt explicit teaching against their will”, but my main point, apart from PowerPoint being fucking awful, was that teachers (and, I guess, schools) are being mandated to use pre-packaged PowerPoints. So, even though I appreciate your noting the issue with mandates, your comment is not addressing the central vicious idiocy that is pissing off a hell of a lot of people.
Back in my teaching days, I outright refused to use PowerPoint. It may well have been one of the reasons I did not last long in academia.
For me, a teacher must first and foremost have a story worth telling — and that story should be explainable with nothing more than chalk and a blackboard. If the core idea cannot survive without slides, animations, and bullet points, then perhaps it is not yet properly understood.
Another peculiarity of modern academia is the obsession with pre-prepared lecture handouts. ‘Handouts’, in my view, should emerge during the class itself. If a student fails to follow, they are more than welcome to continue the exploration afterwards, through books in the library or resources on the internet. Learning should involve some degree of intellectual pursuit, not merely the passive consumption of pre-packaged notes.
This was, in a way, my own version of “Dogme 95.”
Also, this is a brilliant parody by Peter Norvig:
https://norvig.com/Gettysburg/
Thanks for that link, Dr Mike. I would laugh if it weren’t something I see far too often (I’ve seen entire lessons sidelined for ‘quiet time’ because of technology difficulties)
I absolutely agree with a ‘story… be[ing] explainable with nothing more than chalk and a blackboard’, although for me it is a whiteboard and black marker (the feeling of chalk is too overwhelming for me). But I never have my laptop out during teaching – it is all explained as I go with examples and definitions on the whiteboard, and a pre-printed sheet of the questions expected for that lesson
Personally, I have pre-prepared ‘handouts’ with formulas and brief notes for specific kids, though. It tends to help the easily distractible (which is far too many these days). Even in secondary school, learning for some of these kids is just surviving through a day without throwing punches at other students or staff, not calling the teacher that told you to be quiet the c-word, and figuring out how to sit quietly for five minutes without needing to throw something. For some, it is a success to passively consume pre-packaged notes, unfortunately
Thanks, Fox. I’m fine with some such props or aids or whatever you call them. Ideally, all this should be a good, sane text. However, …
Fox, I understand what you are saying and won’t argue with it, especially when it looks like you have evidence that it works. There are always exceptions. Alas, there are too many teachers/lecturers who can’t stand in front of a class and board but hide behind their PowerPoint presentations and handouts. Talking heads reading from their PowerPoint decks.
Also, black markers and a whiteboard are fine 🙂
You can teach with anything, if you put your mind to it. I’ve taught with supplied, mandated PowerPoints, and the students and I survived. True, I winged it more than I was supposed to, but I largely stuck to the, um, script.
I don’t think anyone is suggesting that school teaching should start with a blank blackboard. (Dr. Mike’s university context is different.) It’s fine to throw up summaries, examples, whatevers on a projector. But that is not the same as delivering an anally prepared script, and it is certainly not the same as being ordered to deliver an anally prepared script that has been produced by some anonymous twat.
Oh, absolutely. I don’t have much context for what it is like to teach at university (or even primary school), so what works/doesn’t work there is probably totally different
But I agree with your general thesis that there needs to be some accountability pushed back onto the students to be an active participant in their learning, and teachers/lecturers/educators need to actually demonstrate an interest in their own teaching beyond following a script/PowerPoint/whatever that they had no hand in making
If I know there’s going to be some admin walking through, you can bet I’m chucking up a cheeky PowerPoint to keep them off my back, though!
Hi Marty, I have nudged drowning colleagues to the Ochre resources because these slides are infinitely superior to the sludge they were using, which were inquiry learning worksheet trash. Colleagues are doing better, and are teaching times tables and mental calculation and kids and colleagues are learning new skills. Ochre is far from ideal. Much better to teach interesting classes with stimulating and challenging problems. But if teachers don’t have the knowledge (so common in Primary settings), Ochre slideshows are a good start. I know your broader point was arguing against Principals using Ochre PowerPoint as the new silver bullet, and you’re absolutely right.
I know, I know, I know.
That is the argument for Ochre and it obviously has validity. But it is still bad, and it is really really really bad to force it.
The proper alternative to inquiry trash is not Ochre, and it is not primarily “stimulating and challenging problems”: it is a solid curriculum based upon a solid text, reinforcing fundamental knowledge and techniques. Challenging problems may be the goal, but it is not the method of preparing the groundwork for that goal.
I know you get it. And I agree, fix teacher knowledge, the curriculum, and the available texts. Don’t force teachers to quick fixes and silver bullets.
Reading your blog for 7 years, Gardiner work for 5 years, Ashman’s for almost as long, and striving to learn mathematics made me a better teacher. I wish more teachers would have a go.
Ashman is not the enemy. But I’d more pleased with Ashman if he used his platform more for some advocating of the “what” rather than all the “how”. As long as the “what” is garbage, people can get by with garbage “how”.
I recall some excellent lectures that I have attended.
One was by a French mathematician who used only chalk and blackboard. No notes. It was beautiful. I was so impressed I tried to emulate this in my next seminar. You have to think hard about what you will keep on the board, and where it will be placed, and what you will erase. It takes a lot of preparation.
Another was by an applied mathematician who was talking about clouds. He used lots of slides with pictures – and some equations. But the lecture was exciting. It made me want to be an applied mathematician. He said to me later that the older he gets, the more pictures he uses.
Once I went to a lecture by Terence Tao. (See today’s honours list for the King’s birthday.) I got to the lecture theatre early to get a good seat. I was the only person in the lecture theatre at that time, but soon the man himself came in, and got set up. He checked all his slides. Looked at how they appeared from the middle of the lecture theatre. Very professional, and an excellent talk. While he was giving the lecture, media people came in with big microphones to grab sound bites for the news. He did not bat an eyelid.
One problem with technology is that it is hard to anticipate what might go wrong. This does not happen with blackboards. Not often anyway. A colleague was giving a lecture using blackboard and chalk when the blackboard literally fell out of the wall. Fortunately my colleague was not injured.
I have found that the whiteboard is sometimes not well placed. The screen for power point is in the centre of the room, and the whiteboard is off to the side, perhaps with poor lighting. Sometimes the white board is not large enough for my liking.
Often, the system is set up assuming that the teacher/speaker is using a PC rather than a Mac.
And we all have seen presenters who use too many slides. One slide/5 minutes is enough.
Traditionally, in areas such as humanities, a paper is often read, without power point. The reader must be a good reader, and members of the audience must be good listeners. There is an art to this. But it would not suit mathematics because we have to use symbols. There was a saying when I worked in health care. Every time you put an equation on the board/screen, you lose half your audience.
The use of symbols makes using technology difficult unless you use LaTeX/Beamer and, for some reason, LaTeX etc. are not well-known in schools. This issue spills over into setting exams at school too.
As for videos in the classroom – well, don’t get me started.
I have been to some atrocious presentations too. But I won’t give details.
Thank you, Terry. You got me to invite E. R. Love to Bendigo, and he gave a beautiful blackboard lecture.
Ochre appear to have had their moment when Canberra Goulburn Catholic Ed mandated a change to explicit teaching / science of learning based instruction and the ACT government schools did not follow. As CG started to get better NAPLAN results it was put down to the instruction and other jurisdictions started to follow suit. Without knowing, I would put it down to the fact that students in CG were being taught basic information better – tables, clauses, morphology – and that this resulted in improvements. However, I feel this was simply a sugar hit and the improvements will not continue but the genie is out of the bottle.
I argued at a SOTLA (Science of Teaching. and Learning Australia) conference in Melbourne that whilst ever we have a Humpty Dumpty curriculum (if it fell over no-one would be able to put it together again) we will continue to have gaps in learning and the response was that what was important was the delivery. Emily Hansford of Sold a Story was headlining with Pam Snow and Lorraine Hammond among others. The cartel that has grown out of Science of Learning in recent years is missing the point, crap in equals crap out. Rosenshine saw all of his principles being taught in rooms without powerpoint.
The bulk of my career has seen me have to struggle to try to teach children what they needed in the face of expert opinion. Just when I thought that was going to change I have to follow processes that again hinder my ability to teach what children need. Clearly the pushback against explicit teaching that Jenny Donovan is talking about is more of a pushback against powerpoint. What has happened is that rather than fix teacher knowledge, jurisdictions have tried to take a shortcut and it won’t work. Unfortunately, good, effective teaching will be the casualty of side effects of this shortcut as people retreat back into what they know and a great opportunity to improve education will be lost.
Thank you, Ben. Except for your lack of paragraph structure, you have expressed it very well.
From the Stanford math department, https://stanfordmag.org/contents/give-them-a-clean-slate
For Luk, prepared slides come with similar drawbacks. “You already see the full sentence,” he says. “I think it’s often useful to see the full thinking process for the other person to digest.” Using chalk as opposed to a whiteboard marker or iPad pencil, Luk says, benefits instructor as much as it does student. “It helps me not to go too fast and to think carefully, both in my computations and in instruction.”
I use an online whiteboard but my feeling is similar.
But also, I would feel much better if our US elementary teachers used a script rather than DIY their own math.
Thank you, MPSS, and sorry for the delay in your comment appearing: I just found it in spam. (Perhaps your reference to Stanford triggered a Boaler-block or something.)
I don’t think the argument for/against PowerPoint/scripts is as cut and dried for school as it is for university. But if you are so concerned for the ability of teachers and “DIY” that you prefer they simply deliver a script, I think your concerns are much deeper and are fundamentally different. And I think this gets to the heart of it.
I think this push for very regimented lessons boils down to a fundamental mistrust in teachers’ ability to teach. I share a lot of this mistrust. Where I differ is in thinking the solution involves turning teachers into automatons, rather than ensuring teachers are much better prepared.