How to make a presentation for a lesson: 7 rules

Students look at a slide for a few seconds and listen to you for the whole lesson. So a lesson presentation is not a set of notes projected on the wall — it's a prop for what you say: a diagram, an example, a question for the class. Here are seven rules that work in schools, universities and corporate training, plus a lesson structure that makes the slides easy to plan.

Rule 1. Start with the learning goal

Before you open any editor, finish the sentence “By the end of the lesson, students will be able to…” — explain how two things differ, solve a new type of problem, name three causes of an event. The goal tells you which slides you need. Anything that doesn't lead to it goes into extra materials.

The goal turns into a plan: warm-up, new concept with an example, check, summary. Show that plan as the second slide, so the class always knows where you are and how much is left.

Rule 2. One idea per slide

A slide with three concepts makes the class read about the third while you explain the first. Break the material into small steps: the definition on one slide, the example on the next, the exception on another. Richard Mayer and Roxana Moreno call this segmenting in their review of cognitive load in multimedia learning: material presented in small parts, with pauses between them, is understood better than one continuous stream (Mayer and Moreno, 2003).

You will end up with more slides, and that's fine. Twenty simple slides go faster and calmer than seven crowded ones.

Rule 3. Make text readable from the back row

The test is simple: walk to the back wall of the room, or shrink the slide on your screen to the size of your palm. If you can't read the heading, it's too small. For business presentations Guy Kawasaki suggested never going below 30 points — more on that in our guide to the 10/20/30 rule. For a classroom it's a good starting point.

Large type also limits how much fits: a heading and three or four short points. You'll say the rest yourself. Watch the contrast too: a projector in a bright room washes out pale colors, and text over a busy photo is hard to read even up close.

Rule 4. Don't read your slides aloud

When the slide says exactly what you say, attention splits: students read and listen at the same time and do both worse. Mayer and Moreno call this redundancy — identical words on screen and in speech get in the way instead of helping.

Let the slide show what is hard to say out loud: a diagram, a map, a chart, a photo, an example with numbers. A short line for students to copy into their notes is fine — keep it to one line.

Rule 5. A diagram instead of a paragraph

Show a process as steps with arrows, a comparison as two columns, a history as a timeline with dates. Put labels right next to the parts of the picture rather than in a legend at the bottom, so eyes don't have to jump back and forth. And cut decoration that explains nothing: a funny picture “for the mood” competes for attention with the diagram next to it. Both tips come from the same Mayer and Moreno review: words placed near the graphic they describe, and less extraneous material on screen.

Rule 6. Check understanding as you go

Don't save all the questions for the end. After each new concept, ask the class something: pick the right answer, spot the mistake, give your own example. This is more than a check. Trying to recall strengthens memory by itself: in an experiment by Henry Roediger and Jeffrey Karpicke, students who tested themselves after reading a text remembered more a week later than students who simply reread it (Roediger and Karpicke, 2006).

A good question on a slide has answer options where the wrong ones look like common mistakes. Then the class's answers show right away what wasn't understood and what to go back to.

Rule 7. End with a summary and homework

The last content slide holds the three key ideas of the lesson, not “Thank you for your attention”. Then comes the assignment and where to find the material. If the presentation opens from a link, students can review it at home on their phones, and anyone who missed the lesson can catch up.

Lesson structure on slides

For a lesson, pick a template with large text and strong contrast — on a projector, pale and small things disappear first.

How to do it in JamPres

1. Choose the purpose. In “What it's for”, pick “Lesson or lecture”: the outline will follow concepts with examples, a summary and questions to check understanding.
2. Paste the topic or your notes. Click “Build outline” and adjust the points: remove what you don't need, add a warm-up or another example.
3. Build the slides. At the “Style” step, choose a template and click “Build the slides”. You can change the template and colors later in the editor.
4. Add a poll. In the editor's bottom bar, open “More blocks” and choose “Poll”: a question and two to six options. Polls are available from the Base plan.
5. Publish and teach. “Publish” gives you a link. Open “Present” on the presentation page: students vote from their phones through the link, and you see the results live.

This is what a poll slide looks like to a student: they pick an answer and see how the class voted. Set “Results for the viewer” to “Don't show”, and only you see the results.

You can hide an answer, too: on a paragraph or a list, turn on “Hide under ‘More’” and the text opens with a click. “More blocks” also has “Tabs” and “Countdown” — they work on every plan. “Analytics” shows how many times the material was opened, and a PDF for handouts can be downloaded on any plan.