Logan Freeman

Professor Ruth Benander

English 2089

15 September 2022

Interview

I have the ambition of helping a community of high school students in IT classes grow the important skill of creating proper slideshow presentations in this course. To develop my project further, I conducted an interview with someone who has knowledge with this format of presenting. The person I interviewed is the IT teacher at my previous highschool, Mrs. Pamulapati, or Mrs. P. She is also the teacher of the classes I plan on helping by using my skills in making slideshow presentations. Going through these classes myself, she stood out as one of the teachers that most valued these kinds of presentations. Therefore, I figured this interview would give me a better perspective when it comes to my goal for this course. I configured four questions to gather more information and insight that will help me guide my project for this course.

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

My interview with the IT teacher of the classes in my community, Mrs. Pamulapati, was conducted over email. This format of interview is what worked the best, as it gave time for Mrs. P to construct her responses and allowed me to keep track of those responses.

Question One. For my first interview question I asked, “Do you believe it is an important skill to be able to create proper slide shows? Especially in terms of building this skill through practice in class? If so, why?”. The reason I began the interview with this question was due to its importance to my project. My idea to help teach the process of making better slideshow presentations needs to be meaningful to make a lasting difference. Therefore, I wanted to ask Mrs. Pamulapati if she sees the importance of this idea in general. Her response was along the lines that having the skills of creating “informative and engaging” slideshows is critical to any student's success. Following this I asked if it is important to build these skills in the environment of a class. She said that students (in her experience) have been using slideshows for “quite some time”, although she notes that these students have never been taught “simple techniques to enhance their presentation or pitfalls to avoid”. She then gave a particular example that “most students just put all the words they want to say on a slide and then read them verbatim”, this ties into one of my later questions. I feel as though beginning with this question was good as it helped define the importance of my goal.

Question Two. In my next question I asked, “How do you decide whether to ask students to create a slideshow rather than other methods such as writing? Do some specific topics need this type of expression? If so, why? (pros/cons?)”. The reason I asked this question was because I wanted to get an idea of why Mrs. Pamulapati assigns slideshows in her classes. Slideshows are a specific kind format, so I felt this question may give more insight about their use. In her response Mrs. P claims she likes to assign her students slideshows as she believes that it can be less overwhelming compared to a writing based assignment. Additionally, this format can allow for a much greater degree of personal expression and creativity. One particular quote she gave was, “the more you allow a student to pick and choose part of what they are doing, the more engaged they will be with the work and more ownership they will take”. This quote stood out as meaningful to me, as I’ve certainly noticed this idea taking shape in my own learning experience. Whenever I get to pick and choose what I’m doing with my work, I feel as though I get more out of it. Next, she said that new topics often require the information to be presented in multiple ways in order for the student to commit it into their working memory. To complete this task she recommended “chunking the material into smaller bits and adding graphical elements” as a way of better retaining information. This idea certainly applies to the format of slideshows, which can be used to show information in these kinds of methods. When creating a slideshow it is best to summarize information into bits or bullet points which can launch into talking points. As well as this, you can implement graphical elements in order to create a strong visual relation to the information. Mrs. Pamulapati’s response certainly presented a better perspective as to why she assigns slideshow presentations in her class.

Question Three. For my third question I asked. “If anything, what do you think the majority of your students can improve when it comes to making and presenting slideshows? Also, what do you believe determines a good/proper slideshow in terms of school or even the work world? What do you look for?”. This question is probably the overall most important for my project, as I need ideas of improvement in order to create a meaningful amount of change. I hoped to gain insight into how students in my community can improve when it comes to building slideshows and presenting them. Importantly, this information is from the perspective of someone who has to study and grade a big amount of these kinds of presentations every school year. Mrs. Pamulapati’s response began with the fact that students can vastly improve the slide’s layout and the content presented on each slide. Most notably, she claims that too often students just read the bullet points on their slides rather than using them to launch into actual talking points. Therefore, she says that they learn to use slides as more of a tool, not just the sole element of their presentations. Then, she said she “I look for good typography, a variety of layouts and graphical elements”. Along with this she states that she would like to see students create their own layouts and themes, rather than using pre-installed templates. She notes that these options are a good place to start, but that higher education and the workforce often require more deeply tuned presentations. Programs like Google Slides and Microsoft Powerpoint allow a great degree of creativity, and this should certainly be harnessed in order to create this better product. Mrs. Pamulapati’s response definitely gives good inspiration for what I can do to promote improvement in my community.

Question Four. The final question I asked was, “How do you use slideshows in your profession? Have you had to use them in other jobs besides teaching? If so, was this format able to get your thoughts and ideas across? Why?”. I felt as though this question could be meaningful to see Mrs. P’s own experience with slideshow presentations. She said that she uses “slides all the time in my profession as a teacher of K-12 students, college students and in professional development (when I am teaching adults)”. Then, she defined the reasons why the format of why slides can be a powerful method of presenting your thoughts. She said that the most useful slides are not overwhelming, but yet visually pleasing, and contain information which can be referred back to. This idea is important, as I’ve noticed there are many ways to create sideshows, but it’s critical to be able to create effective ones that can best portray your thoughts and ideas. Altogether, Mrs. Pamulapati’s response gave me a better idea of how she uses the format of slideshow presentations in her profession.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I feel as though this interview has certainly given a better perspective learning from a professional who uses slideshows. Mrs. Pamulapati’s responses will be very valuable to developing a better project that can create a meaningful difference in my community. Her answers to the first question I posed helped define why my goal for this course holds the potential to make a positive difference. Next, her responses to my second question gave me a better understanding of why and how slideshow presentations are used in the environment of my community. Then, for my third and most important question, Mrs. P’s response gave me possible pitfalls the students in my community can improve on in the process of making slideshows. Finally, the responses to my fourth question helped give perspective on Mrs. Pamulapati’s background with the format of slideshows in her profession. I am satisfied with the results of this interview as I will be able to use it as a building block to produce a successful project for this course.