Blackboard and Overhead Tips

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Using the Blackboard

• Designate a corner of the blackboard to always indicate the lesson title for the day, along with a checklist of the daily agenda, and any instructions students should take note of when they first enter the classroom. Students can become organized and ready for the lesson before you are done taking roll.
• Erase used portions of the blackboard that are no longer needed before class.
• Erase vertically, not horizontally, lest you discover the class laughing behind your back at the way you do the horizontal erasing dance.
• Stop to look back toward class. This will...
  • Allow wait time for students to finish writing.
  • Assist voice projection.
• USE LARGE LETTERS!
• Write legibly. Use block letters, if necessary.
• Spell words correctly! There's no excuse for misspelled words written by the teacher. Plan ahead, and look them up!
• Verbalize everything that is written down, not only for the sake of those who can't read your print (who perhaps left home without their contacts that day), but also to give students time to mentally process the content. If you don't want to read it aloud, ask students to do it!
• Complement blackboard use with handouts or overheads listing terms, vocabulary, and giving copies of difficult diagrams.
• To talk while drawing on the board is an art, but may be a helpful skill to learn if your drawings take an inordinate amount of time. In such a case, provide copies of completed drawings as handouts to students.
• Label drawings! This gives students time to process the meaning of the drawing, and provides reinforcement to visual learners who cannot distinguish sounds or make a sustainable long-term association if given only an oral explanation.

Don't tap or click on the blackboard, podium, or overhead projector!

Using the Overhead

Imagine: You are teaching your first class, and know that first-impressions are all-important. You have decided to use an overhead...

• Why use an overhead?
• What can go wrong?

1. Advantages of Overhead Transparencies
2. Visual reinforcement.
3. Time efficiency:
   • The time required to write on a blackboard plus adequate time for students to copy is much shorter with overheads. However, allow adequate time for students to copy the overhead AND to think about what they have copied. The point is not so much that you can go faster, but that they get more time to visualize the meaning of what is conveyed.
   • More complete statements.
   • More complete labelling of diagrams.
   • Better quality images. (Photos, diagrams, color-coding.)
4. Teaching convenience:
   • Less repetitive to present
   • Less chalk-dust inhaled
   • Reusable if stored carefully
5. Unlike slide projectors, overhead transparencies can be used in lighted rooms.

Tips for Use of the Overhead

• Locate spare bulb. (Inside projector?)
• Check screen alignment. (No cut-offs of sides, top or bottom.) Don't just get on with the lesson without checking to make sure students actually see what you think they can see.
• USE LARGE TYPE.
  4 mm or 1/4 inch high minimum. THIS IS THE MOST FREQUENT MISTAKE MADE IN OVERHEAD PREPARATION.
• Limit each transparency to one main idea.
  More & simple is better than fewer & complicated. CROWDING TRANSPARENCIES IS THE SECOND-MOST FREQUENT MISTAKE ENCOUNTERED IN THE USE OF OVERHEADS.
• Summarize points clearly and cleanly.
  Details, if essential, should be given on paper handouts.
• Use simple graphs and diagrams.
  Tabulated data, if essential, should be handed out.
• Use progressive disclosure to ensure attentive focus. That is, cover lower items with an opaque sheet of paper and successively uncover them, one by one, only as they are ready to be discussed.
• Overlay corresponding transparencies to show development. (Color-code different layers.)
• Opaque modeling provides opportunities for creative instruction. For example, one may demonstrate the changes in cell organelles during mitosis with modeling clay, string, or other miscellaneous items such as buttons or paperclips.
• Maintain stylistic continuity when switching between blackboard and overhead. For example, do not use a textbook-provided diagram of m-RNA on an overhead that is much less abstract than a blackboard diagram of m-RNA. Draw both consistently so that students can switch their attention back and forth without confusion.
• Turn the overhead projector off when you digress from a disclosed point, or when you switch to the blackboard.
• Read each point out loud.
  This allows students time to read and comprehend, and will help students with poor vision.
• Point on the transparency, not on the screen. This maintains eye-contact, but is not as "fun" as a screen pointer! Other advantages are that the transparency is easier to reach than the screen; you don't have to turn your back to the students, and it's easier to stay out of the way and not introduce shadows. Use a retracted pen as a pointer directly on the transparency.

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