lectures—before there were awful PowerPoint presentations, there were awful scripted lectures, unscripted lectures, slide shows, chalk talks, and so on." Much of the Microsoft PowerPoint, or simply PowerPoint, is a presentation program developed by Microsoft. It was originally created by Robert Gaskins, Tom Rudkin, and Dennis Austin at a software company named Forethought, Inc. It was released on April 20, 1987, initially for Macintosh computers only. Microsoft acquired PowerPoint for about $14 million three months after it appeared. This was Microsoft's first PowerPoint's convenience for some presenters is costly to the content and the audience. These costs arise from the cognitive style characteristics of the standard default PP presentation: foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spatial resolution, an intensely hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narratives and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous chartjunk and PP Phluff, branding of slides with logotypes, a preoccupation with format not content, incompetent designs for data graphics and tables, and a smirky commercialism that turns information into a sales pitch and presenters into marketeers [italics in original]. Tufte particularly advised against using PowerPoint for reporting scientific analyses, using as a dramatic example some slides made during the flight of the space shuttle Columbia after it had been damaged by an accident at liftoff, slides which poorly communicated the engineers' limited understanding of what had happened. For such technical presentations, and for most occasions apart from its initial domain of sales presentations, Tufte advised against using PowerPoint at all; in many situations, according to Tufte, it would be better to substitute high-resolution graphics or concise prose documents as handouts for the audience to study and discuss, providing a great deal more detail. Many commentators enthusiastically joined in Tufte's vivid criticism of PowerPoint uses, and at a conference held in 2013 (a decade after Tufte's booklet appeared) one paper claimed that "Despite all the criticism about his work, Tufte can be considered as the single most influential author in the discourse on PowerPoint. ... While his approach was not rigorous from a research perspective, his articles received wide resonance with the public at large ... ." There were also others who disagreed with Tufte's assertion that the PowerPoint program reduces the quality of presenters' thoughts: Steven Pinker, professor of psychology at MIT and later Harvard, had earlier argued that "If anything, PowerPoint, if… A… ..…

Each faculty recruiting season, many postdocs ask, "What is a chalk talk?" The chalk talk is many things-a sales pitch, a teaching demonstration, a barrage of questions, and a description of a future research program. The chalk talk is arguably the most important component of a faculty search interview. Yet few postdocs or grad students receive training or practice in giving a chalk talk. In the following essay, I'll cover the basics of chalk talk design and preparation. Mol Biol Cell Mol. Biol. Cell 1 mbc 9201390 mboc Molecular Biology of the Cell 1059-1524 1939-4586 American Society for Cell Biology PMC6727636 PMC6727636.1 6727636 6727636 31194669 10.1091/mbc.E19-01-0007 E19-01-0007 1 Perspective How to design a chalk talk—the million dollar sales pitch Snapp Erik Lee a * a Janelia Research Campus, Ashburn, VA 20147 Kozminski Keith G. Monitoring Editor University of Virginia *Address correspondence to: Erik Lee Snapp ( snappe@janelia.hhmi.org ). 15 6 2019 30 13 341442 1575 1577 08 4 2019 23 4 2019 30 08 2019 08 09 2019 10 03 2026 © 2019 Snapp. The chalk talk is arguably the most important component of a faculty search interview. Yet few postdocs or grad students receive training or practice in giving a chalk talk. In the following essay, I’ll cover the basics of chalk talk design and preparation. pmc-status-qastatus 0 pmc-status-live yes pmc-status-embargo no pmc-status-released yes pmc-prop-open-access yes pmc-prop-olf no pmc-prop-manuscript no pmc-prop-legally-suppressed no pmc-prop-has-pdf yes pmc-prop-has-supplement no pmc-prop-pdf-only no pmc-prop-suppress-copyright no pmc-prop-is-real-version no pmc-prop-is-scanned-article no pmc-prop-preprint no pmc-prop-in-epmc yes pmc-license-ref CC BY-NC-SA The chalk talk is a faculty candidate’s opportunity to describe his/her proposed research program. The candidate stands in front of a dry erase board with some markers in a room of 10–20 faculty members for an hour. We’re so close to our projects that they sound rich and melodic to our ears, while others perceive our research description with nasal squeakiness that eludes us. Unfortunately, writing down our ideas does not initially lead to recognition of the flaws. Therefore, seek out one to three faculty members that have served on search committees and request their feedback. Talking to other postdocs or lab members may be helpful, but it is essential to get feedback from people that have considerable experience with chalk talks. The organization and style of chalk talks is rarely taught, so few people can offer much guidance. Faculty members can help distinguish mechanistic questions from descriptive proposals, identify overly ambitious goals, and evaluate the attractiveness of a research proposal. CREATING A RESEARCH VISION A The data need to be predictable and outcomes interpreted. If the likely outcomes cannot be described, a search committee member will be unable to evaluate the research vision. Clarity and details For chalk talks, the challenge is learning how to describe the research vision to a diverse and naive audience. There may be some experts that know the candidate’s particular field, but there are plenty of people that do not. Most people probably do not use the same terminology or jargon. Minimize jargon and if jargon is absolutely necessary, explain each term. Ten minutes is a short amount of time to present an overview. The background must be succinct. However, her shoe size, the specific music pieces played at the ball, or the species of pumpkin are irrelevant details for advancing the story. The same is true of a research vision. Learn to communicate the research vision with only the most salient details. If a committee member wants to know some technical details, let him or her ask that question. In those instances, it is helpful to rephrase the questions and/or add some introduction so that the rest of the committee members will understand the answer. TRANSLATING A RESEARCH VISION INTO THE CHALK TALK FORMAT The chalk talk expands the research vision into an ∼30-minute presentation composed of an overview and then expansion of the aims. In fact, the candidate needs to steer the presentation. Committee members may unintentionally or intentionally derail the chalk talk into an argument over obscure details. Part of the candidate’s task is to answer questions while keeping the talk moving forward. Importantly, the search committee needs to be excited about the research program. How will you be a good colleague? Why provide you with a million dollars to execute your research vision? An easy to follow proposal with a compelling problem and clear outcomes will increase the enthusiasm of the committee. PRACTICE Engineering a chalk talk often takes weeks of effort. What did not? How can something be made clearer or more engaging? COMMON CHALK TALK QUESTIONS Many chalk talk questions will involve clarifying details about background, experiments defending an interpretation or suggesting alternative approaches. Additional questions may include the following: What is your dream experiment and the anticipated result? What are the project/thesis titles for the first two graduate students? How will you incorporate undergraduates into your research program? If you are working with noncommercial technology (e.g., a novel microscope), can you build and maintain that technology? Maintain your energy level. Bring a beverage. The host may not offer anything. Thank the attendees for their time. Minimize time facing the whiteboard. Engage with the committee. Most importantly, be enthusiastic! This is your research program. You should be proud of it and excited about getting the opportunity to realize your vision. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES www.ascb.org/careers/preparing-academic-chalk-talk/ https://blog.addgene.org/designing-your-chalk-talk-for-the-academic-job-interview https://edgeforscholars.org/qa-how-to-give-a-chalk-talk/ http://vosshall.rockefeller.edu/assets/file/ChalkTalk.pdf

Chalk talks are a ubiquitous teaching strategy in both pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine and medicine in general; yet, trainees and early career faculty are rarely taught how to design, prepare, and present a chalk talk. Skills necessary to deliver a chalk talk are transferable to other settings, such as the bedside, wards during rounds, and virtual classrooms. As a teaching strategy, the chalk talk can involve learners at multiple levels, foster practical knowledge, stimulate self-assessment, encourage the generation of broad differential diagnoses, and promote an interactive learning environment. Suited for both formal and informal learning, the chalk talk can be prepared well in advance or, after some practice, can be presented "on the fly." Furthermore, often on the wards or in the intensive care unit, team members are asked to "teach the rest of the team" at some point during rounds. There is little guidance in medical education for students and trainees to prepare for how to do this, and the chalk talk can serve as an excellent format and teaching strategy to "teach the team" when tasked to do so. To highlight our perspectives on best practices in using the chalk talk format effectively, we first briefly review the literature surrounding this very common yet understudied teaching strategy. We then provide a primer on how to design, develop, and deliver a chalk talk as a resource for how we teach residents, fellows, and early career attendings to deliver their own chalk talks.

This article discusses the chalk talk's potential as an active learning method. Although chalk talks are a form of interactive lecture, they have received little attention in the medical education literature compared with other active learning methods such as team-based learning and simulation. One of the authors (C. K. L. Phoon) has used chalk talks to teach congenital heart defects to first- and third-year NYU medical students for many years. His chalk talks have consistently earned among the highest teaching scores, and students have noted their strengths of being more interesting, clear, and tangible than didactic lectures. Using the teacher and student perspectives, we examine the chalk talk's strengths and weaknesses compared with common passive and active learning methods. Chalk talks create a real-time, shared space that facilitates the active learning goals of helping students build, test, and revise mental models (conceptual frameworks). The limited amount of information that can be presented and the ability to solicit and arrange students' ideas on the board lead to the cocreation of valuable conceptual frameworks. Chalk talks require less restructuring of teaching sessions than other active learning methods and are best suited to topics that hinge on understanding of concepts. We advocate for the chalk talk to be reexamined as a promising educational tool given its strengths and the successes that other active learning methods have shown. Furthermore, we provide guidance to help educators deliver chalk talks and discuss future studies that would advance understanding of this powerful teaching tool.