study math from powerpoint slides or transparencies. It seems that a growing number of professors are using transparencies to aid in teaching, which I think generally is a good thing for certain topics. However, I always have trouble following in class when it comes to mathematics on transparencies. With transparencies, professors usually go through what’s on the slides verbally in a quick manner. It usually takes a while for me to digest what is written on the slides and i would get lost very quickly. Thus, I personally prefer classes in which the professor uses only blackboard and chalk, with minimal uses of slides for lengthy examples among other minor things. I find this method much better, because as they teach and write on the board, they usually involve students in the thoughts process of what actually goes on the board and eventually onto the students’ notes. It does take a while to get used to the method as it requires a lot of attention as well as extensive amount of note-taking, but I find that I can follow along much easier than the former approach.

Over the course of almost 5 years as an undergrad as well as a grad student at Penn State, I would like to commend two professors whom I think do an excellent job at teaching courses in mathematics. The first one is Dr. Winnie Li, over at the Mathematics department, who taught me in ODE in undergrad. The other one is Dr. Tom Cavalier, who’s teaching me Graph Theory. What both of them have in common is the ability to teach without having *any* notes with them at all. They could just go on and on over the class materials and were able to present them with great clarity. The only time they would use stickies is for reminding them of the example(s) they want to give in class. Amazing people, they are…

If you have taught me a course in mathematics, and have used powerpoint slides and somehow stumbled upon this blog, please do not get me wrong though. I don’t think that it’s your method of teaching that’s the problematic. It’s probably just how I learn things… judging from the fact that other people seem to be doing just fine with the slides!