Mike
Pearce teaches social studies at Ellison
High School in the Killeen Independent School District in
Texas, USA. But Mike is not just another teacher -- he uses
PowerPoint presentations to deliver a successful teaching
system that has shown a phenomenal improvement in the results
and passing rates.
In this exclusive interview, Mike discusses
his PowerPoint based system.
I am 37 years old, born in South Kingstown, Rhode Island.
After graduating high school, I entered the US Marine Corps and served as
an infantry rifleman, a special weapons security guard, and
a marksmanship range coach. While in the Marine Corps, I
married my high school sweetheart, Melanie Ford with whom
I have six children. Upon my discharge, I attended the University
of Rhode Island (URI) where I earned a Bachelor’s degree
in Political Science. My wife earned a US Army Reserve Officer’s
Training Corps (ROTC) scholarship and a pharmacy degree.
After we graduated in 1996, as a newly commissioned Army
officer, my wife received orders to Fort Hood, TX.
I had dreams, prior to graduation, of becoming a legislative aide
in Washington, DC but they were thwarted by Melanie’s
assignment. I attended Baylor University for a short time
pursuing an MPPA (Masters in Public Policy and Administration)
but was forced to drop out after six weeks due to a lack
of funds and more importantly, that we had two children who
I was forced to put in day care for long periods of time.
One day, my eldest daughter who was 3 years old at the time,
looked up at me after I picked her up from daycare and said, “Daddy,
you’re gone too long.” It broke my heart and
I dropped out that week. I spent a good deal of time playing “Mr.
Mom”, which was very depressing. I saw a commercial
on television one day produced by the Education Service Center
in our region asking people with a college degree to consider
becoming certified teachers. I thought about it, and said, “What
the heck -- I can teach for a couple of years and then move
on to bigger and better things”. The very last thing
I ever expected was to make a career of teaching.
After I was certified in 1997, I was placed in a 5th grade classroom
at Mountain View Elementary, and then a 3rd grade classroom
for the next two years. I enjoyed teaching in elementary
school, but wanted a bigger challenge and the opportunity
to be able to communicate with students at a higher level.
Upon my request, I was transferred to Liberty Hill Middle
School and assigned to teach eighth grade American History.
I had finally found my niche!
When I arrived at the school, it was in its third year of existence. In its two previous
years of existence, the passing rate on the state mandated
social studies exam (The Texas Assessment of Academic Skills),
was phenomenally low; 1999- 63%, and in 2000 a 74%. I was
flabbergasted that a quarter to over a third of our students
were failing the TAAS, so I set out to correct it! The use
of PowerPoint presentations became the key to my success!
Over
the course of the next six years, our scores rose drastically,
from 92% in my first year, and culminating in 2006 with a
99% passing rate; 77% of the students earned “commended
performance” (receiving an 88% or above), and 21 of
my students who took the exam, earned a perfect score
-- not a single question wrong! That amounted to roughly one
out of every six students!
After feeling a great sense of satisfaction, I decided it was time for another challenge:
High School! I was recruited by Ellison High School this
past academic year to teach Geography and US Government… but
was informed in November that I would be taking over Advanced
Placement (AP) United States History and Advanced Placement
(AP) United States Government and Politics in January. I
took over the US history course mid-year… so, producing
PowerPoint presentations became an immensely difficult and
hurried task. AP Government was an enormous task, but less
so, as it is only a semester long course and I was able to
use some of what I had produced during the first semester
in general education US Government. At the end of the course,
students are required to take the rigorous Advanced Placement
exam (for which they can earn college credit), and the scores
in previous years had been horrible. The 2007 scores will
not be released until late July, so we shall soon see whether
PowerPoint is equally effective in AP courses, as well as
high school in general.
Geetesh:
Mike:
How did you get started with these presentations?
In the late 1990’s, my school district, required all teachers to take a “Computers
for Teachers” course which was run by a few select campus technologists.
At the time, it was a basic introduction to standard Microsoft software
such was Word, Excel, and PowerPoint -- remember, in the late 90s,
computer use was still foreign to many. I took the course in 1998,
and was intrigued when we got to the section on PowerPoint. I immediately
recognized the potential benefits to using it as a teaching tool
and remember asking, “Why aren’t teachers using this?
It’s phenomenal!”
After my training, the gears in my
head began to turn, but I was teaching elementary school
and could only find a few effective uses for it. As I stated
earlier, I was transferred to Middle school in 2000 and the
PowerPoint door kicked wide open. I spent the first semester
teaching both general education and Talented and Gifted students
in the standard textbook driven fashion. In addition to my
duties as a teacher, I also coached football at the time
giving me less time to do my work. When Christmas break arrived
in December, I decided that I was finally going to design
a PowerPoint driven class and I spent the entire two weeks
working on it.
When my students arrived back in January,
they were very receptive. The presentations were very basic,
but my eighth graders were fascinated and begged for more.
Needless to say, I continued creating PowerPoints and spent
the entire summer working on them. It caused an enormous
strain on my family, as I never seemed to have time to leave
my computer. My wife understandably became very frustrated
because of my neglect of family matters, but became very
supportive once she saw its benefits for students and for
me as an educator. It was also clear that once I was done
with the entire curriculum, life would return to normal,
if not improve.
Geetesh:
Mike:
What made you choose PowerPoint as the medium
in which you wanted to present these lessons?
An excellent question, and one that needs to be answered
thoroughly!
PowerPoint provides students who have fully embraced
the technological age in which they live, the opportunity
to learn the way they play, communicate, etc. PowerPoint
provides students not only with words, but with sound, pictures,
photographs, and movie clips. They are fixated on the presentation,
anxiously anticipating the contents of each slide.
The use
of visual images is most crucial, as the vast majority of
students are visual learners and when they can associate
an event in history with a picture or photograph, it stays
in the long-term, rather than the short term memory. I have
had students who are now in college write me with great praise
and thanks, usually accompanied by a story about how they
were able answer a professor’s question
because there was a PowerPoint slide about the topic tattooed
in their memory!
Geetesh:
Mike:
What plans do you have to create and distribute
more content like this in the future?
The PowerPoint presentations I’m currently marketing
only take the student through the year 1877, as dictated
by the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for
eighth graders. As I mentioned before, when I moved to
high school, I began teaching US history and government.
Therefore, I hope to finish up my hastily, but still well
constructed presentations for both classes and market them
as well. My ultimate goal is to build my business so that
it can provide teachers in every curriculum area with the
opportunity to use the type of presentations I am using
in my social studies classes.
Geetesh:
Mike:
Any trivia that you would like to share?
An unconventional use of the presentations, just some
thoughts, or anything you want to share with Indezine
readers.
At first glance, my presentations may take an adult viewer
aback. There are no templates and I often change colors with
each slide. Additionally, font styles and sizes also change,
and the slides are full of very rich text -- an obvious taboo
in the business world.
Why do I do this? Because most kids are
not excited about what they are doing in most classrooms
due to the continuation of textbook driven teaching styles.
American students embrace mediocrity and they need to be
convinced that their learning might be worthwhile, and yes,
somewhat entertaining. PowerPoint provides that!
Slide colors
change with each click because it grabs my students’ attention-
they crave variety and templates will put them to sleep.
The same goes for font styles and sizes; Students like to
look up from slide to slide and see varied forms of writing.
Yes, even that makes it more interesting to a kid. Finally,
why so much text? The first reason is that it teaches the
students to outline and take notes proficiently -- they learn
to write down what they need to, not everything on the slide.
Secondly, there are a good number of students who need to
read what is on the slide because that is their learning
style -- it helps them retain the information better. They
need to see it all -- not just a key phrase or two. All
people learn differently, and PowerPoint is an amazing educational
too that helps me to adequately meet the needs of every type
of learner.
Note from Geetesh: You can buy a collection of Mike's PowerPoint
presentations from his site...
About
Mike Pearce
Over
the course of the next six years, our scores rose drastically,
from 92% in my first year, and culminating in 2006 with a
99% passing rate; 77% of the students earned “commended
performance” (receiving an 88% or above), and 21 of
my students who took the exam, earned a perfect score
-- not a single question wrong! That amounted to roughly one
out of every six students!
After feeling a great sense of satisfaction, I decided it was time for another challenge:
High School! I was recruited by Ellison High School this
past academic year to teach Geography and US Government… but
was informed in November that I would be taking over Advanced
Placement (AP) United States History and Advanced Placement
(AP) United States Government and Politics in January. I
took over the US history course mid-year… so, producing
PowerPoint presentations became an immensely difficult and
hurried task. AP Government was an enormous task, but less
so, as it is only a semester long course and I was able to
use some of what I had produced during the first semester
in general education US Government. At the end of the course,
students are required to take the rigorous Advanced Placement
exam (for which they can earn college credit), and the scores
in previous years had been horrible. The 2007 scores will
not be released until late July, so we shall soon see whether
PowerPoint is equally effective in AP courses, as well as
high school in general.
