Building Ideas with Multimedia Slides
Overview
Presentation tools, such as Google Slides andPowerPoint, are the perfect environment for learners to develop and express their ideas in multimodal formats. Each slide provides a canvas to develop ideas, using various media such as pictures, text, audio and video. This strategy is incredibly flexible and can be used as a scaffold for various instructional goals. For example, you can use it to help learners develop knowledge in a content area, develop a written assignment, or develop a presentation.
The strategy is a “super-scaffold” because there are various ways to modify it to work for varied needs of learners. Teachers can use different levels of prompts, let learners work individually or in groups, and address a variety of content and skill areas. Most importantly, the process can be fun and engaging for learners, allowing them to make choices, find images and develop their own media as they create their multimedia slides.
Videos & Examples
Using Multimedia Slides to Develop and Build Ideas (3:22)
We explain how this strategy is a “super-scaffold” that gives many ways to customize supports for the needs and preferences of their learners. This powerful strategy lets students develop ideas using various media. They can type text, add images, record audio, add links to websites, and embed videos.
Multimedia Slides: Creating a Template as a Scaffold (1:53)
This video illustrates how a teacher can use a multimedia slides template to provide structure and guidance. In this example, the students are learning about the water cycle and they will eventually develop a written essay. The teacher wants them to develop ideas for their essay using multimedia slides.
How can you integrate this strategy in the classroom?
This strategy is a “super-scaffold”, which can be used for a variety of purposes and can support learner variability in many ways. The table below illustrates how the “Building ideas with Multimedia slides” strategy can be used in a lesson to reduce barriers and address learner variability in alignment with the steps of the UDL Design Cycle.
| Goal for this lesson | This strategy can be used for various instructional goals such as:
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| Potential barriers to reaching this goal |
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| Learner variability factors | Students’ preferences, strengths and backgrounds can include: enjoy creative activities enjoy the choice to use various formats (text, audio, picture or video) Prefer working alone or like to work in groups Can speak fluently in home language or other languages Like hands-on projects Students may need support for:
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| Assessment | Multimedia slides provide opportunities for both formative and summative assessment.
Students can use the slides for various purposes:
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| Methods | This strategy allows teachers to ‘chunk’ skills that students are learning and give them the opportunity to build skills and practice for fluency. This supports planning, organization, and minimizing the cognitive load that facilitates successful completion of assignments. The strategy lets the teacher build in various supports and scaffolds that can be used flexibly with students as needed. Use slides (e.g., Google Slides or PowerPoint) as an environment for students to collect and articulate information about a topic. The best part of this strategy is the number of flexible options you can build into it:
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| Materials | Google Slides or Powerpoint (or similar presentation software) |
Classroom Vignette
In her Middle School Science class, Ms. Park is teaching a unit on how plans are used as traditional medicine in cultures globally. Ms. Park teaches in an inclusive setting and her students include multilingual learners (MLLs) and students with disabilities. She uses the multimedia slides strategy to give students the chance to work in small groups to build their understanding of this concept. Each group is given the task of choosing 3 plants and using photos, videos, audio, and text to describe the importance of these plants. Ms. Park encourages students to find plants from their own countries and cultures if they would like to.
To proactively support the varied needs of learners in her class, Ms. Park creates a template in Google Slides. She provides a word bank of key vocabulary and headers on each slide to guide students on what information to focus on and collect on each slide. These scaffolds are available for students as they need them.
Before groups start working on their slides, Ms. Park models what she’d like students to do, communicating clear expectations. In her Google Slide template, she lists the basic expectations on the initial slide so students have that for reference anytime. She demonstrates how to do internet searches for credible information, find photos, put them in Google Slides, and write a caption. She demonstrates how to use tools like speech to text and audio recording so that students have choices on how to add information to the slides. She lets students know they can use their home language to write/record if they wish. She also provides guidance on how she expects groups to work together.
Because there are only two classroom computers, student groups share the resources. They develop their slides over the course of several class periods. Groups do some of their research offline, using books that the school librarian has helped them identify. They decide which plants they will write about and start developing what they will say about each plant. Once they have their turn at the computer, they search for photos and videos and begin developing their slides.
Students enjoy having the choices of what to include, with opportunities to research plants from their home countries. Ms. Park has given then parameters that help them set goals for how to break down a task and accomplish it over time. While creating the project, students have various ways to express themselves, using images, audio, and text.
This classroom vignette is adapted from the book UDL for Language Learners. (Torres & Rao, 2019)
How does this strategy support multilingual learners and students with disabilities?
This strategy aligns to the Foundations and Frameworks for supporting Multilingual Learners and Students with Disabilities in the following ways:
Content and Language Development | Comprehensible Input This strategy lets students summarize key points and highlights of “input” on a topic, whether it’s text they have read, information from the teacher, or from other sources (such as videos they have viewed). Students can identify key points and organize what they have learned on slides. Support for language production This strategy provides a powerful support for language production, allowing students to express what they know in multimodal ways that they choose (using text, photos, graphics, video and/or audio). This can build their confidence to articulate what they are learning and support their ability to engage and interact with content, classmates (if the project is collaborative), and teacher. This also allows students who are developing language to begin with key words and short phrases as a starting point and develop the language from there. Opportunities for feedback and practice Teachers can review the slides as students develop them and give formative and learning-focused feedback. You can see if learners are capturing the main points for the instructional goal (which could be a report, oral presentation, etc). The slides provide an insight into what students are retaining and identifying as most important and teachers can guide students as needed. You can provide feedback in discussions with the student or use the commenting feature in tools like Google Slides. Cultural & linguistic Connections Students can incorporate cultural or linguistic elements into the slides if appropriate for the instructional goal or topic. The slides can include bilingual elements or video/audio made by students using home languages or other cultural elements. This strategy can address social, affective, and cognitive aspects of language development: Social: If students work in groups to develop the slides in the multimodal environment, it can support interaction and collaboration and authentic use of language. It also lets students discuss and clarify concepts. Affective: Multilingual learners need to feel confident that they can be successful in activities, feel safe and supported to make mistakes, and feel that what they are learning is relevant and engaging for optimal language development. This strategy lets students develop ideas and generate language with flexible options, removing the formality of speaking or writing. Cognitive: Multilingual learners need opportunities to use language/ apply what they are learning in authentic situations, and they need multiple opportunities to practice to develop automaticity with the language. Using multimodal slides to compile information they are finding and learning, students have the chance to build an understanding based on artifacts and resources that are relevant for them. They can identify resources (photos, videos, text) and build conceptual understanding of topics using various media and formats to support language development. |
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Universal Design for Learning | This strategy, “Building Ideas with Multimedia Slides” provides support for learners in various ways. The strategy aligns to UDL guidelines related to the principles of Representation, Action & Expression and Engagement: UDL Guideline 3: Comprehension
Teachers can provide a template or frame for developing ideas (e.g., headers on slides) that incorporates background knowledge (key words that students can use to build on). In addition, learners can develop and expand on their ideas incrementally pulling together background information from various resources on different slides and then expanding from there.. The “chunking” provided by the slides helps students organize and manage information. Action & Expression Guidelines UDL Guideline 5: Expression and Communication
The multimodal nature of this strategy gives learners the opportunity to use digital tools and media in creative ways.. Learners can make choices to integrate various modalities - text, video, audio and graphics - to develop their ideas. The process lets learners choose how they would like to express themselves. For example, one learner may prefer recording an audio clip on a slide to remember a key point, while another student may prefer typing a summary. The multimodal nature of the strategy allows students to leverage on their preferences and make choices of how to capture and express information. Learners can develop their slides and make changes based on feedback from peers and teachers, allowing them to practice and edit their work before creating the final product. Guideline 6: Executive Function
As part of the multimodal slides strategy, teachers can provide a basic template or a set number of slides to develop as a minimum. This gives learners concrete information and goals on what they need to work on (e.g, 8 slides with specific information on each). This enhances clarity and makes expectations clear, allowing students to plan and strategize as they work, with a clearer understanding of the scope of the project. Teachers can also provide feedback and set goals as learners work on their multimedia slides, helping students to monitor their progress and make sure they are using time effectively to build their work. Guideline 7: Recruiting Interest
While developing their ideas on slides, learners have a lot of choice and agency to build out ideas as they’d like. They can integrate information and resources that they find interesting. This process provides learners with a lot of autonomy, allowing them to use their creativity and various types of media.
Learners can focus on what to put on each slide, minimizing distractions and make a large task less daunting. Guideline 8: Sustaining Effort and Persistence
Learners can develop multimedia slides in groups (if appropriate for the lesson), which allows them to learn from and with each other. This strategy can also be used as a way for students to develop ideas together and then use the ideas in individual work (e.g., an essay they write independently). Teachers can provide learning-focused (mastery-oriented) feedback as learners develop their slides, letting them know what areas to expand or develop more. With incremental check-ins, teachers can ensure that students are on track and give students specific feedback on what areas they can/should work on, when developing longer-term projects. |
Multilingual Learners and Students with Disabilities | This strategy provides varied and customizable scaffolds for all learners and supports Language Learners and Students with Disabilities in various ways. The strategy can:
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Culturally Relevant Practices and Asset-Based Pedagogies | The nature of this strategy allow learners to incorporate media and content related to their cultural or linguistic backgrounds, as appropriate:
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Additional Resources
Research & References
Hitchcock, C., & Rao, K. (2013). Power Assisted Writing for Science: Developing expository writing in a multimedia environment. Teaching Exceptional Children. 46(1). doi: 10.1177/004005991304600
Rao, K., Dowrick, P., Yuen, J., & Boisvert, P. (2009). Writing in a multimedia environment: Pilot outcomes for high school students in special education. Journal of Special Education Technology, 24(1), 27-38. doi: 10.1177/016264340902400103
Torres, C. & Rao, K. (2019). Universal Design for Learning (UDL) for language learners. CAST Professional Publishing.