Teachers make more slide decks than almost anyone, and under more time pressure. The temptation is to put the lesson’s text on slides and read it. Research on multimedia learning points the other way: people learn better from words and pictures together than from words alone, and worse when the same text is shown and spoken at once. Slides should carry pictures, key words and structure; the teacher carries the explanation.
A structure for lesson decks
| Part | Slides | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Hook | 1 | A question, a picture or a puzzle that makes students curious |
| Learning goals | 1 | “By the end of today you can …” in two or three points |
| Recall | 1 | A quick question on last lesson to connect old and new |
| New content | 3 to 8 | One idea per slide, with a picture or diagram |
| Check | 1 to 2 | A quiz question, a poll or a think-pair-share prompt |
| Practice | 1 to 2 | The task, with instructions visible while students work |
| Summary | 1 | The key points to copy or remember |
| Exit question | 1 | One question to answer before leaving |
Designing slides for learning
- One idea per slide. Split complex topics into steps; reveal them one by one with animations.
- Pictures that explain. A diagram of the water cycle teaches; a clip-art cloud decorates. Label diagrams directly.
- Key words, not paragraphs. Students cannot read and listen at once. Put full sentences on handouts.
- Large, clear type. At least 24 pt for text in a classroom; sans-serif fonts are easier for many readers.
- Consistent signals. The same colour or icon for definitions, examples and tasks throughout the course.
- Calm backgrounds. Busy themes compete with content; light, plain grounds work best on classroom projectors.
Activities and quizzes inside the deck
Every eight to ten minutes, students should do something: answer, discuss, write, vote. Plan these moments as slides so they happen even when time is short.
A click-to-reveal quiz question in PowerPointWindows and Mac
Write the question and answers
On a slide put the question as the title and three or four answers as separate text boxes or shapes.
A quiz slide with four answer boxes Add the feedback
Add a shape saying “Correct — evaporation!” near the right answer. Select it and choose Animations → Appear.
Trigger it
With the feedback selected, choose Animations → Trigger → On Click of and pick the right answer’s shape. In the slide show, clicking that answer reveals the feedback.
Animations → Trigger → On Click of Test it
Start the slide show from this slide (Shift+F5 on Windows) and click each answer.
- Think-pair-share: a question slide, one minute alone, two minutes with a neighbour, then answers from the room.
- Hands-up predictions: “What will happen if …?” before showing the result.
- Live polls: phone-based tools such as Mentimeter or Slido collect anonymous answers on screen.
- Odd one out: four pictures, one does not belong — why?
Accessibility in the classroom
- Contrast: dark text on light ground; avoid red-green distinctions alone.
- Alt text for pictures in decks students receive (right-click → View Alt Text); Review → Check Accessibility finds gaps.
- Live subtitles: PowerPoint’s Slide Show → Subtitle Settings shows spoken words as captions — helpful for hearing-impaired students and language learners.
- Shared decks: give students the slides or a summary after class, so nobody has to copy while listening.
- Reading order: in decks students read alone, check the order a screen reader follows with Home → Arrange → Selection Pane.
Education templates
PowerPoint’s File → New has education templates (search “lesson”, “classroom” or “education”), and Google Slides’ Template gallery has lesson and report decks. Good education templates have a clear title slide, a goals slide, content layouts with room for a picture, a quiz layout and a summary layout. Choose one and use it for a whole course: students learn the structure and focus on the content.
Presentation ideas for students
When students present, the same principles apply. Give them a structure (hook, three points, conclusion), a time limit, and a rule about text (“no more than 20 words per slide”). Topics that work well:
- An invention that changed everyday life, and who made it
- A historical decision, argued from both sides
- How something works: a bicycle gear, a vaccine, a search engine
- A local problem and a proposed solution
- A book or film in five slides, without spoilers
- A myth tested against evidence
- A day in the life of a job they find interesting
For more topics and formats, see our presentation ideas and, for a lighter end of term, the funny topics of a PowerPoint night.
Teaching online and in hybrid classes
On a video call, slides take the place of the classroom: the screen is all students see. That changes a few things. Text has to be readable in a small window, so keep sizes up and words down. Attention drops faster, so plan an interaction every five minutes — a question in the chat, a poll, a reaction. Share the slideshow window rather than the whole screen, so notifications stay private, and keep your notes on a second screen or in presenter view.
For hybrid classes, repeat questions from the room aloud before answering, so remote students hear them, and run activities through a tool both groups can reach — a shared document or a phone poll — rather than hands in the room.
Building decks for a whole course
- One template for the course. The same title, goals, content, quiz and summary layouts every week; students know where to look.
- A master deck per unit. Keep all slides of a unit in one file with sections, and build each lesson by hiding or reordering slides.
- Name and date versions. “Unit 3 – Water cycle – v2024” saves hunting through old files.
- Collect your best slides. Diagrams and quiz slides that worked go into a favourites deck you reuse each year — see our guide to starring and reusing slides.
- Share after class. A PDF or a link to the slides lets students review without copying during the lesson.
Common lesson-slide mistakes
- Reading the slides aloud. Students read faster than you speak and stop listening.
- Too many slides per lesson. Forty slides in forty-five minutes leaves no time for thinking. Fewer slides, more activity.
- Decorative animations. Spinning titles distract; use animation only to reveal steps in order.
- No visible goal. Without learning goals, students cannot tell what matters. Show them at the start and check them at the end.
Designs for this kind of deck
Every design brings its own colours, fonts and layouts to the whole deck.
Lesson decks with ExpertSlides
ExpertSlides drafts a lesson deck from one sentence — the topic, the age group and the goal — or from your own material: attach your lesson notes, a textbook chapter as PDF or a worksheet, and the AI builds the deck from what they say. It chooses layouts for goals, step-by-step explanations, diagrams such as cycles and processes, comparisons and summaries, and puts pictures in the frames.
The library also has training and workshop slides, and interactive slides made for the classroom: quizzes that resolve and explain the right answer, polls, ratings, flip cards for vocabulary or definitions, a timer for activities, checklists and steppers (interactive elements are part of Pro and Business). They work live when you present from the browser, and the audience window follows on the classroom screen.
Related: the six types of presentation aids and dynamic presentations. Read about the AI slides generator and browse friendly looks in Design Templates.
Questions, answered
How do I make lesson slides students follow?
Start with a hook and learning goals, show one idea per slide with a picture or diagram, add an activity every eight to ten minutes, leave task instructions on screen, and end with a summary and an exit question.
How much text should a teaching slide have?
Key words and short phrases, not paragraphs. Students cannot read and listen at the same time; put full explanations on handouts.
How do I make a quiz in PowerPoint?
Put the question and answers on a slide, add a feedback shape with an Appear animation, and set Animations, Trigger, On Click of the right answer, so clicking it reveals the feedback.
What are good presentation ideas for students?
How something works, an invention and its inventor, a historical decision argued from both sides, a local problem with a solution, or a myth tested against evidence.
Can ExpertSlides make lesson slides with quizzes?
Yes. It drafts a lesson deck from a topic or your notes; on Pro and Business you add interactive quizzes, polls, flip cards and timers from the Insert tab, and they work live in class.
