Episode 14: How to Break Up Your Lectures with More Effective and Engaging Slides with Dr. Echo Rivera

by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D.

lecture breakers podcast teaching strategies



Description:  Break away from the bullet points! In episode 14 of the Lecture Breakers podcast, we're talking about how to create engaging, well-designed slides to support your presentations and align with your teaching strategies.

When we talk about breaking up lectures and creating more engaging learning environments, you may not think about your presentation materials. Your slides and your handouts play a very important role in the overall feel of the learning environment and the message you want to convey to your students.

In this episode, my guest is Dr. Echo Rivera. She helps academics, researchers, scientists, and evaluators communicate more effectively and creatively. Echo is the founder of Creative Research Communications, and her expertise is helping us avoid "death by Powerpoint!" (We've all been there....)

Echo joins us to talk about not only how to break up your lectures, but how to break up your slides – and we talk about how those two things go together. It’s not enough to just change your teaching strategies or just change your slides. You need to do both, and Echo is here to help us figure all of this out.

In this episode, she shares specific and practical strategies you can use to design effective and engaging slides, handouts, and visual materials. She’s shattering the myths we all hear about using slides in our classrooms and in our professional presentations.

Echo shares tons of free resources, videos, and online courses to help you align your slides with your teaching strategies. See the show notes below and be sure to check out her website!

Memorable Quotes & Ideas:

"Don't just change your slides. Change your approach to presentations too."

"We've all kind of lost our way about the purpose of a presentation.  A lot of people aren't just ready to jump in and start redesigning their slides because we believe in a lot of myths and these myths will actually stop you from designing your slides in an effective way."

"Humans need stories to learn." 

"Share your data and add a narrative to it."

"Don't tell them. Show them."

Echo shares a list of myths you need to let go of before you can really unlock your potential to create visually engaging presentations.

 

Show Notes: (listed in the order the resource was discussed on the show)

Transcript:

Some of these resources contain affiliate links (indicated by *). If you purchase a product or sign up for a program through one of these links, I receive a commission at no additional cost to you. I only endorse products and services that I think will be helpful for you and that I have used myself. Thank you for your support.

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