The benefits of using blank slides by @rufuswilliam

Name: Rufus
Twitter name: @rufuswilliam
Sector: Secondary
Subject taught (if applicable): Maths
Position: Lead Coach
What is your advice about? The benefits of using blank slides

1. A key question to ask oneself as a teacher is ‘where should the attention of my students be now?’
2. Whatever presentation tool you use, there are benefits to having things written on it during the lesson. For example, I start my lessons with a ‘Do Now’ on the board for students to do immediately as they come into the room.
3. There are many parts of the lesson where what is written on the board is not useful and can become a hindrance to learning. For example, when I want the students to be concentrating on what I’m saying, I don’t want them to be distracted by what is still on the board.
4. Turning the interactive whiteboard off and rubbing off what’s written on the whiteboard are good strategies to focus the attention of students on one’s explanations. When using presentation tools, I’ve found the best strategy is to use a blank slide when I want the attention on me.
5. This should not be confused with dual coding. Dual coding is when you use a pictorial representation to augment an explanation. If this is done well then a slide with this picture can be good during an explanation.