Content is King! But only if it sits on a worthy throne: How to give your best presentation without sacrificing your content.
Purpose: The purpose of this educational session is to instruct attendees in the art of graphic design as a mode to engage students more readily, increase learning retention, and improve student’s overall satisfaction of the course. It has been shown that aesthetics can evoke positive emotion which in turn has been shown to increase comprehension and learning transfer.1 Well designed visuals can enhance mental processing by improving the learner’s focus or attention, organizing the material in logical pathways, integrating new knowledge with prior information, and by decreasing cognitive load which in turns optimizes working memory.2–9 Enhanced design communicates enhanced value as well as increasing intrinsic motivation.1 Humans are attracted to pleasing stimuli and make rapid judgements on the credibility and value of the information based on the initial look.10,11 In Robins et al10 study, it only took participants 3.42 seconds to make a judgement on the credibility of a website based solely on the aesthetics. Think style, Mac vs PC. Apple customers are drawn to the design and look of the products regardless of the difficulties that may coincide with the use of the product. For example, the 2016 release of the iPhone 7 donned the removal of a headphone jack. iPhone users would henceforth have to carry a converter or get on board with bluetooth earphones. Did that cause the sales of iPhone to plument? No! Apple sold over 200 million iPhone 7’s in 2016 when the new phone was launched, which was it’s second highest year behind the current release of iPhone X.12 Despite the frustration of the design, which required updated equipment to use the device, aesthetics won out. We are all passionate about physical therapy education and we want our patients, clients, and students to be able to encounter this passion through our work. Using engaging design in the classroom is a way to communicate that care and credibility while increasing student learning outcomes.Methods and/or Description of Project: This course will focus on specifically how educators/practitioners can apply ideas of design and aesthetics to engage students in learning, improve retention, and overall satisfaction of course work. The course will introduce the why behind quality design, how it enhances student learning, and easy steps to use tomorrow to incorporate design in the physical therapy educators classroom. Primary mode of delivery will be lecture with visual aides both in presentation and handouts. A clear step-by-step implementation plan will be discussed and demonstrated for the participants.Results/Outcomes: Wecker13 demonstrated in his study that learners who receive a concise presentation that accompanies an oral presentation, demonstrate significantly improved learning retention.13 Furthermore, individuals who received more complex slides (content rich) demonstrated dysfunctional allocation of attention and their retention of the information responded negatively.13 Research has also shown that aesthetics affect cognitive processing in four main ways: selection, organization, integration, and processing efficiency.2,3,5–8,13,14 Design has been shown to increase attention to the instructional message and help users select the important information.14 Learning has also been shown to be facilitated when important information is presented close together and in a format that is easily read. This leads to decreased cognitive load by lessening the burden of searching the visual aid for important information, instead clearly displaying the message.14 In physical therapy education, integration and application of material is key. McCrudden and Rapp14 have identified that good design can facilitate the integration of key information by laying a pathway of connections of prior knowledge and new, to-be-learned knowledge. And finally, good design can be used to improve the learner’s processing efficiency by creating a clear path for the learner to see and encode the important information into working memory. Poor design has been shown to leave the learner with negative emotions of dissatisfaction, poor comprehension of material as the learner struggles to make sense of the important information and an overall loss in trust of the person presenting the material.10,14,15Conclusions/Relevance to the conference theme: Our Leadership Landscape: Perspectives from the Ground Level to 30,000 Feet: To be a leader in physical therapy education we need to adapt and amend our practices on a regular basis. Today’s student is not the same as yesterday’s student. Quality education doesn’t have to be dry or dull. Deliberate design practices can improve upon the perspectives of our students, patients, and stakeholders to employ the positive message of how physical therapy impacts the world. Our ground level are the students entering university doors daily. Today’s student is technologically driven and we are competing for their attention. Sleek and elegant design can be just the caveat to maintain their attention and improve our learning outcomes. This educational session provides a simple step-by-step guide that every practitioner/educator can implement easily and begin to connect with today’s student.References: 1. Um E “rachel,” Plass JL, Hayward EO, Homer BD. Emotional design in multimedia learning. J Educ Psychol. 2012;104(2):485-498. 2. Cheng TS, Yu-Chun L, Chu-Sing Y. Using the multi-display teaching system to lower cognitive load. Br J Educ Technol. 2015. http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/jeductechsoci.18.4.128.pdf. 3. Cook MP. Visual representations in science education: The influence of prior knowledge and cognitive load theory on instructional design principles. Sci Educ. 2006;90(6):1073-1091. 4. Gehlen-Baum V, Weinberger A. Teaching, learning and media use in today’s lectures. Comput Human Behav. 2014;37:171-182. 5. van Merriënboer JJG, Ayres P. Research on cognitive load theory and its design implications for e-learning. Educ Technol Res Dev. 2005;53(3):5-13. 6. van Merriënboer JJG, Sweller J. Cognitive load theory in health professional education: design principles and strategies. Med Educ. 2010;44(1):85-93. 7. van Gog T, Ericsson KA, Rikers RMJP, Paas F. Instructional design for advanced learners: Establishing connections between the theoretical frameworks of cognitive load and deliberate practice. Educ Technol Res Dev. 2005;53(3):73-81. 8. Leppink J, Duvivier R. Twelve tips for medical curriculum design from a cognitive load theory perspective. Med Teach. 2016;38(7):669-674. 9. Hertz B, van Woerkum C, Kerkhof P. Why Do Scholars Use PowerPoint the Way They Do? Business and Professional Communication Quarterly. 2015;78(3):273-291. 10. Robins D, Holmes J. Aesthetics and credibility in web site design. Inf Process Manag. 2008;44(1):386-399. 11. Borkin MA, Vo AA, Bylinskii Z, et al. What makes a visualization memorable? IEEE Trans Vis Comput Graph. 2013;19(12):2306-2315. 12. Apple iPhone sales 2007-2018 | Statista. Statista. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-3rd-quarter-2007/. Accessed March 6, 2018. 13. Wecker C. Slide presentations as speech suppressors: When and why learners miss oral information. Comput Educ. 2012;59(2):260-273. 14. McCrudden MT, Rapp DN. How Visual Displays Affect Cognitive Processing. Educ Psychol Rev. 2017;29(3):623-639. 15. Iten GH, Troendle A, Opwis K. Aesthetics in Context—The Role of Aesthetics and Usage Mode for a Website’s Success. Interact Comput. 2018;30(2):133-149.Course Objectives: Describe how effective use of design can impact student learning. Implement strategies of success with design in the physical therapy classroom. Utilize the principles of design to create appealing slides and graphics. Access tools to facilitate design creation.Instructional Methods: Lecture and HandoutsTentative Outline/Schedule: 1-20th minute - Background Information on Design and Learning, The Why 20th-60th minute - Describe design principles and how to implement in slides/graphics 60th - 80th minute - Access and Demonstration of tools to facilitate design 80th - 90th minute - Questions/Answers