Oh man, you guys do not want to get me started about this.
TLDR version; I detest when people who haven't studied teaching try to tell someone how they should teach.
I know we gather a lot of science/math types, but I'm betting we don't have a ton of educators here. Not professors or instructors, but people who have actually gone through a full teacher-training program and have a degree in education. If any of you
do have an education degree, hey, awesome, we should talk sometime. But please do understand that just as there is a huge gulf between a degree in chemistry and a degree in chemical engineering, there's a huge gulf between a degree in chemistry and a degree in science education. (I use those particular examples because those are where three of my degrees are.)
One major problem with college education is that it's (usually) taught not by teachers, but by academics. Most college professors and instructors aren't trained to teach, and in many schools they have no incentive to learn to do so. (Don't get me started on Powerpoint presentations in a business setting.)
Now, you guys have already touched on learning styles in this thread. Consider that every single student is different. Some of you find writing notes to be helpful, some do better by listening and absorbing the information. Some want to see the word portion of the information presented as it's spoken about, others are OK with having a slide and following along. Some prefer working in groups, some prefer working alone. A good teacher is going to use a mix of styles, because we have to. There's just no way around it. So statements like
I ha[te] when teachers use projectors or powerpoint to lecture. It's a lecture; you should be writing stuff on the board.
are incredibly aggravating to me; they're a blatant display of the
Dunning-Kruger effect. Sometimes things
can't be written on the board as you're doing them. Sometimes you have to present a picture or a diagram. Complex diagrams--say, a midsaggital section of the brain--aren't something you can draw on the fly, especially if you're then going to draw
on it to label/explain the various structures.
Now, some simple diagrams can be drawn by hand as you go, and in many cases that is likely to be the best way to get the information across; for example, a static diagram of the temperature as height in the atmosphere increases, showing the atmospheric layers, is likely to have less impact than a diagram drawn from scratch. Of course, some students will find the static diagram more useful, so a good teacher will also have that handy, possibly in the textbook, possibly as a handout.
Certainly there are things that usually should not be presented as a single slide. Math and scientific math problems should be presented step-by-step, because that's what you're likely to expect from the students on an exam. This
can be done entirely with Powerpoint, if you spend the time on it, but it's usually easier to write it out as you go. Nonetheless, you're going to have some students who will follow better if the entire problem is in front of them at the start, and they can follow the steps as they go.
The single best system I've used, in terms of technology, is the Smart-board-like system described a couple of times above, I don't remember by whom. Being able to write notes onto a virtual "board," which can be superimposed onto a Powerpoint slide or diagram if you want, or just left blank if that's better, is a huge, huge advantage. It's something you can't do with just a blackboard or just a whiteboard. It allows a huge amount of flexibility, including the ability to fluidly switch from lecture/presentation to class participation/practice. I love the classrooms I've been in that have had that setup, and they're thankfully becoming more common.
OK, rant off.