PowerPoints are Killing Knowledge

What is knowledge? A lot will think that such question is an easy one, but in fact it is not. Why? Well according to dictionary.com, knowledge is “acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles, as from study or investigation; general erudition.” And that is just one simple definition. Another definition from the same website is that knowledge is [about] familiarity or conversance, as with a particular subject or branch of learning.” Wait my dear reader, there is a third definition from the same website which says: [knowledge is] acquaintance or familiarity gained by sight, experience, or report. Therefore, knowledge can be seen from different perspectives, with different interpretation; and the previous definitions are just from one simple perspective, that is how dictionary.com views knowledge. Let us now think of knowledge in a more philosophical perspective. Some philosophers see knowledge as “ justified true belief.” Those ‘knowledge philosophers’ see that, according to the previous definition, knowledge should be analyzed from the speaker’s perspective. The analysis claims the following:(1) the proposition (the piece of information) is true, (2) the speaker believes that this proposition is also true, (3) the speaker is justified in believing that this proposition is true. Therefore, knowledge is a kind of process in which the piece of information should be truthful, the speaker must believe and understand that this information is truthful, and the speaker is confident of the truth of this piece of information. What I want to say is that the third part of the process of understanding knowledge is missing or neglected in our lectures at Yanbu University College (YUC). If the student is not justified with the way instruction is taking place, then he or she will not consider the received piece of information as knowledge; then not accepting information as knowledge will lead to questions like, why am I studying this? How does this course affect me? Why am I wasting my time doing this course? And so on.

My title contained the word ‘Power Point’ which refers to the famous Office application. It also contained the phrase ‘killing knowledge’ which is the topic of this article.

My argument is that the overusing of PowerPoint lecturing is not making students acquire knowledge. Students in such kind of lecturing are just passive learners doing nothing with information. Why? Well let us imagine this scenario, the lecturer starts his or her lecture using PowerPoint, he or she ‘reads’ the slides, he or she passes through the slides with no real information ‘digging’, ends the lecture saying ‘that’s it!’. And the learners reply, “ okay, that was fast, and I don’t understand!!”. For sure that is not the kind of reply we want to hear from the students. But what makes them to say that? The reason, as I argue, is that they are not justified with believing that lecture. It is not just a matter of understanding facts, or arguments. It is about processing that knowledge through understanding the reason behind believing such piece of information. So, PowerPoint lecturing is just a replicate of the chalk and talk method, even worse! Why? In the chalk and talk method, there is interaction in which the lecturer is actually drawing the facts and arguing with the students; and also the students are arguing and questioning. By using PowerPoint lecturing, students will not argue the the information put on the slides, because he or she believes that this piece of information does follow the criteria of truth, but he or she are not justified in justifying their belief to their mind.

Am I saying that PowerPoint usage is wrong? NO. What I want to say is that PowerPoints should be used economically. Those PowerPoint slides must trigger the students’ minds to argue, not to just receive information. If the lecturer succeeds in doing that, then he or she had helped students to acquire knowledge.

In summary, PowerPoint lecturing should be a tool to justify knowledge not to give knowledge as facts. Students should be involved in the lecture. They need to discover knowledge. Discovering knowledge contains three steps: the first is that the information given should be truthful, the lecturer should believe in what he or she says, the students should believe that this information is true, and lastly, the students should be justified from the justification given in order to believe that this is real knowledge. Therefore, PowerPoint will kill knowledge, because it does not help students discover it. Students need to ‘forcefully’ read by giving them selected readings. Students should reflect on the readings by giving their feedback and understanding; and students should criticize what they read, and motivate them to think and not receiving this particular piece of information as a holy, and the only, true information. The next big step now is that to help students make their own interpretation of knowledge which is based on logical grounds.