What should be put in the final slide when preparing teaching presentations?

Question

When preparing my PowerPoint slides for a lecture, I often find myself wondering what to put as the final slide.For presentations in industry, when not in a university setting, I often have a final slide which simply says "Thank you." The intent is to thank the audience for attending the presentation. However, this feels a little out of place in a university setting, especially where students may not have a choice of attending (well, the choice is attend or definitely fail).So, I started using a final slide that says "Questions?" However, I recently read something indicating that a teacher should not ask if students have questions (the teacher should either ask a probing question to check for understanding or the teacher should simply expect the students to speak up without prompting).It seems the final slide should somehow indicate that the slides are done and doing that with a content slide does not seem right either. I recently started using a final slide indicating what homework was expected of the students before the next class session (sometimes the slide simply says 'no homework'). This works several sessions into the semester once students see that every time the homework slide appears it is the final slide; however, it does not really work well at the start of the semester.Returning to my question, what should I put as the last slide?

Answer 1

Great question! Although there is no must-do for a PowerPoint presentation, there are unspoken/ unwritten rules such as keep your slides short and to the point, following the 7x7 rule (no more than 7 lines total with a maximum of 7 words each line - ALL approximates naturally!), etc....

As far as the last slide for a lesson, I always end with either of the following: my final expectations, a quick review, references you may wish them to explore on their own, preview of the next lesson, or instructions for a group or pair activity.

As far as questions, I always and I mean always ask: "What questions do you have?" as opposed to "Do you have any question?"

For the few times I don't use any of my examples above, I actually do write: "Questions - Comments - Feedback" all on that last slide. It opens up to discussion and sharing.

I hope this helps!