Powerpoint Presentation

As I do not teach, I created a Powerpoint presentation that I could use with one of my children.  The subject that I used was on westward expansion through Railroads as my daughter is currently studying this topic, and I thought it would be a great way to help her with an upcoming quiz.  I used basic information from handouts that her teacher had sent home, but tried to add interesting facts such as contrasting the amount of time it had taken to travel west both before and after the railroads.  Since so many of the ideas pertained to other areas, such as the affect of the buffalo’s demise on the American Indians, I decided to add questions that would promote higher level thinking and discussion beyond the information presented on the slides.

We were able to effectively study the facts that she needed to know for the quiz, and also have a dynamic discussion where she gave independent ideas for how the early settlers would have dealt with the problems they faced and how the American Indians were dependent on the buffalo.  One of the things that I added that is not apparent from the slides, as they can only be posted as visuals, was an audio clip of the United States government’s stance on the killing of buffalo.  I think that in today’s age of environment protection, she was more than a little surprised at how they actively promoted the killing off of the buffalo herds.  I was proud to be able to add this component to show how ways of thinking have changed over time, and it led to us researching further what the status of the buffalo are today.

If I could create this presentation again, I would have added links to internet resources that explained some of the questions that she had so that the research was done prior to presentation.  Although it was fun to be able to conduct this research with her, it would be too time-consuming when teaching a class and I would want to be better prepared for some of the questions the students may have.

Overall, the experience was a very rewarding one as I was able to put together a Powerpoint presentation indicative of one that I would use in a classroom and also help my daughter study and think critically about the ramifications of the information presented.  “I already know this” was the response that I received upon asking my daughter to be my test subject for this presentation.  After much cajoling on my part, and a little bribery, she agreed to sit down for the lesson.  She said that she liked how we talked about other things than just the railroads, how the slides were short, and how there weren’t too many pictures.  Her only concern it seems, upon viewing the last slide, was “Do I really have to write about this?”.