Does the design of slides for medical lectures follow the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Of course not! There is a very recent and serious article by Rajin Le Blanc and Nicola Cooper at Clinical Teaching on December 10, 2025 which is titled Investigating Death by PowerPoint: Do Medical Lecturers Adhere to the Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning in Their Slide Design? They examined 52 lectures presented at the University of Nottingham. And they found that:

 

“Students were exposed to text‐heavy slides 84.4% of the time, an approach that CTML [Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning] shows impairs learning through violating the minimal text principle. In addition, the mean word count per slide was 38.2 – significantly more than the ‘few words’ suggested by the principle. Lecturers did however use images relatively frequently at 59.9% of the time.”

 

Counting its title, my slide example modified from Section 2.1 (and shown above) has 85 words, more than twice the 38.2 average.

 

There is another succinct four-page pdf article by Jacob B. Waxman and Sue J. Goldie from the Center for Health Decision Science at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health titled Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. That theory is also described by Richard E. Mayer in the 2020 third edition of his book, Multimedia Learning.

 

Hand gestures by the Four Tops in a video for the 1967 song Reach Out - I’ll Be there

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Recently I was watching the three-minute YouTube video for the 1967 Four Tops hit song Reach Out - I’ll Be there, which begins with a ten-second musical gallop.

 

After that, the Tops do a wonderful series of choreographed hand gestures starting with claps and continuing with lots of finger pointing, etc. Although you don’t have a production team like Motown’s famous Holland-Dozier-Holland, you can still use hand gestures to add emphasis to a speech. 

 

There is another YouTube example with their live black and white version of Standing in the Shadows of Love where lead singer Levi Stubbs is sweating profusely.

 

An image of the Four Tops was colorized from this black and white one from Wikimedia Commons.  

 

Filler words are not as bad as you might think

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is a useful article by David Kesiena at RollingOut on December 25, 2025 that is titled Why filler words like ‘um’ aren’t as bad as you think. He says:

“Determining when to use filler words becomes easier by asking three specific questions:

1. Who is your audience? If listeners have already granted credibility and want a relaxed atmosphere rather than a formal speech, filler words work perfectly fine. They create connection rather than distance.

2. What are the key messages you want to convey? Entering conversations with three specific talking points increases confidence while conveying information, naturally minimizing filler word frequency. During prepared presentations, speakers often use few to no filler words without realizing it because they already know what needs saying.

3. Are you actively listening to the other person? Sometimes filler words emerge because speakers aren’t completely sure what the other person has communicated. With trusted friends or family, established relationships make polish unnecessary. These conversations benefit from natural speech patterns.”

Another similar article by Gina Park at KSL.com on December 25, 2025 is titled Should you stop saying ‘um’? Here’s what experts said.

  

The image was modified from this one at Wikimedia Commons.

 

Ignore an executive coach who doesn’t know the difference between a joke and a study

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is an article by Mike Hawkins in the December 2025 issue of Talent Development (TD) on pages 62 to 64 titled Overcome Your Fear of Public Speaking. In the second paragraph he claims that:

 

“Studies on glossophobia have found that some people would rather be in the casket than give the eulogy at a funeral.”

 

But, of course, that was not a study but rather a very well-known joke from comedian Jerry Seinfeld, told on his TV show for May 20, 1993. I blogged about it in a post on April 8, 2018 titled Misquoting Jerry Seinfeld and inflating fear five times. We should ignore Mike.

 

An image of Jerry came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

What truculent means and why it is not spelled truckulent

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The December 19, 2025 Pearls Before Swine comic by Stephan Pastis has the following dialogue:

 

Rat: You’re being truculent today.

Goat: What does ‘truculent’ mean?

Rat: Quick to argue.

Goat: I’m not like that.

Rat: And there you go being truculent.

Goat: I hate when he gets a new word-of-the-day calendar.

Rat: You can never argue about being truculent without being truculent.

 

And why isn’t it spelled with a ‘k’ as truckulent?  The Merriam-Webster dictionary explains:

 

“English speakers adopted truculent from Latin in the mid-16th century, trimming truculentus, a form of the Latin adjective trux, meaning ‘savage,’ and keeping the word’s meaning. Apparently in need of a new way to describe what is cruel and fierce, they applied truculent both to brutal things (wars, for example) and people (such as tyrants). Eventually even a plague could be truculent. In current use, though, the word has lost much of its etymological fierceness. It now typically describes the sort of person who is easily annoyed and eager to argue, or language that is notably harsh.”

 

A cartoon with a boy and a toy truck was adapted from OpenClipArt.

 

 

We have always prepared French fries this way, but should we?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I recently got a 2024 book titled The Tried & True Cookbook by Alyssa Rivers from the Boise Public Library. Page 149 in it has a recipe for Air-Fryer French Fries, which also appeared online on October 14, 2023 at her The Recipe Critic web site titled Amazing Air Fryer French Fries.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the book, her second step is to slice the potatoes into 1/4” strips. The third step is to:

 

“Rinse the fries in cold water, and pat them dry with a paper towel.”

 

A Note at the bottom of the page adds:

 

“Don’t skip rinsing the potatoes. This step is important because it gets rid of the starch, which allows the potatoes to get nice and crispy as they cook. Just be sure to dry them really well before cooking.”   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have a criticism for that recipe critic. Why the heck are you wasting paper towels? You could just dump the potatoes into the bowl of your salad spinner (as is shown above), soak them in water to better remove starch, and dry them by spinning? But her list of Essential Kitchen Tools on page 14 of her Tried & True Cookbook does not list a Salad Spinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Similarly, most recipes I had seen for Boston Brown Bread call for that quick bread to be steamed in a coffee can for a couple hours and then sliced (as also is shown above). I never ever tried making it myself - until I saw page 244 in the 1998 book by Mark Bittman titled How to Cook Everything: Simple recipes for great food. He says instead to bake it at 300 F for an hour in 8” by 4” loaf pans. Back around the American Revolution our ancestors had to steam it, since they had no ovens in their kitchens – but we certainly do. Mark’s description for The Basics of Miscellaneous Tools says on page 5:  

 

“Salad Spinner: Nice item, and not only for drying salad greens. It’s excellent for dunking anything that you want to rinse and drain repeatedly. Not essential, but close.”

 

Think about how you cook, and don’t get stuck in a rut. On December 7, 2020 I had blogged about What are you doing in that recipe, and why are you doing it? Earlier, on March 12, 2019, I blogged about Does the Dalai Lama eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast? In that post I noted:

 

“It is dangerous to assume that everyone else obviously does things the same way as we do.”

 

Images of French Fries and Boston Brown Bread came from Wikimedia Commons.

 

 

There are at least three unusual possibilities for a pole used in the pole vault

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Randall Munroe’s humorous xkcd comic (shown above in my colorized version) from December 19, 2025 is simply titled Pole Vault Pole. The second one has a profile which resembles the Gateway Arch in St. Louis. An accompanying web page at Explain Xkcd notes all the rules say is that:

 

“The pole may be of any material or combination of materials and of any length or diameter, but the basic surface must be smooth."