Research points the finger at PowerPoint
smh.com.au
smh.com.au
"the stated purpose of Powerpoint is to present ideas. Its real role is to overcome people's fear of public speaking. It allows you to give an impressive-looking talk about nothing, and it causes the audience to sit in a dark room looking at slides, instead of a bright one looking at you."
(from http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html)
I for one would be happy to see it go by the wayside. In most cases, it makes for boring, formulaic presentations. When used properly, it can serve a good purpose, but most people use it for the purposes that pg stated. I preferred the time where people would instead focus on the speech itself, memorizing much of it. That made talks seem much more dynamic and interesting, in my opinion.
I don't understand how this connects to the rest of the study.
By the same token, apparently, asking students to solve the problem forces them to focus on a specific problem, and it makes learning the concepts (or even remembering what methods went into solving the problem) more difficult, because of the same brain overload.
At least that's what I took from the article. I personally find that I learn best in a class when I listen closely to the professor and take very minimal notes. In doing so, I can focus on remembering what's being said instead of trying to read slides or write quickly. That's why I appreciate professors who put their notes online; I can listen closely in class and then review the notes later on to reiterate what I learned.