Please
ensure you have looked at the Multimedia Learning Theory module before
continuing, which introduces Mayer’s 12 Multimedia Principles. These principles
relate heavily to slide presentations, impacting student engagement and
retention. While these points are not necessarily relevant all the time, keep
this in mind as you design and present your slides.
The Coherence Principle
Applying the coherence principle is simple; try not to include extraneous information in your slides - keep your content clear and concise. Ask yourself if the text and images in your slides are adding value to your presentation. If not, they may actually be detracting value instead.
The Signalling Principle
To utilise the signalling principle, 'signal' to the important and/or relevant information on your slides. Show the students where they should be looking and what information they should be prioritising. You can approach this principle in several ways - take a look at the list below for some options which may be appropriate for your content:
- Live signalling: Live signalling is a method of signalling to the information you are currently speaking to whilst you are presenting. You might do this by:
- circling your mouse over a section of text or graphic,
- drawing/animating arrows and underlines onto the slide,
- drawing/writing in information manually and speaking to it as you go (similar to giving an in-person presentation using a whiteboard),
- physically pointing to a section of text or a graphic (in presentations where your image is also being recorded: i.e. green screen or Zoom), or
- animating your text/graphics to appear in multiple stages instead of all at once (you would need to prepare this in the PowerPoint animation panel beforehand).
- Organising: Make good use of headings and subheadings. Segment information into multiple slides for better comprehension. Help students to understand what information belongs where and how it relates to the other information in your presentation.
- Highlighting: Make key words and phrases stand out by using different font styles - bold, underlined, in a different colour, or highlighted (or a combination of these).
The Redundancy Principle
This principle suggests that students learn better from graphics and narration, as opposed to graphics, narration, and text - be on the lookout for situations where you can exclude extraneous text information and just present by speaking to graphics. Note that this isn't referring to having text labels on your graphics, but to having a larger amount of text to convey additional information.
The Spatial Contiguity Principle
If you do have text and visuals on-screen, try to keep the text as close as possible to the relevant point in the graphics. For example, instead of having a list of labels to the side of a graphic, try to place those individual labels inside/on top of the graphic itself.
The Temporal Contiguity Principle
If showing a graphic or animation, try to speak to it while it is playing/visible, instead of afterwards. You may choose to play it first with no narration, but when speaking to it afterwards, do so whilst playing it again at the same time.
The Modality Principle
In a similar way to the Redundancy Principle (this principle suggests that students learn better from graphics and narration), focus on using your voice to speak to visuals instead of relying on large blocks of text. Leverage
the unique capabilities of the multimedia environment by adding an audio
component. Using voice paired with visuals and graphics can convey emotions,
tone, and nuances that static images and text alone cannot achieve.
The Multimedia Principle
To apply the multimedia principle, try to include (and even base your slides around) relevant graphics. Words and pictures are more effective than words alone. Just be sure to keep the previous principles in mind when using images - make sure they are relevant, effectively signalled, efficiently labelled (where appropriate), and verbally explained.
