Avoid These Common Pitfalls: Top Mistakes to Dodge When Creating Educational Presentations

jessevisionfactory
4 hours ago
5 min read

Author: Elisa Krahl

Here’s a fun but not so fun fact: in a 10-minute talk, listeners remember only 25% the next day, and a mere 10% after a week. That means three out of four ideas vanish almost instantly! If your goal is real learning and memorizing the right things, you’ve got to get this right.

Good educational presentations do more than just dump info. In fact, they should spark curiosity, improve student engagement, and support better learning outcomes. Sadly, too many slides are overloaded, messy, or just confusing. In this post, we’ll explore the most common traps, and I’ll share simple ways to improve your presentation skills.

Mistake 1: overloading slides with text

First of all, slides packed with words make brains crash. People can’t read and listen at the same time. And as a result, they often learn less because of feeling overwhelmed.

Instead, aim for engaging slides: that means, using short phrases, strong keywords, and visuals that do the heavy lifting. The “4 × 6 rule” can help. By using that, you include max. 4 bullet points, max. 6 words each per slide. If you’ve got more to say, save it for handouts. Clear slides are best to create effective teaching presentations.

Mistake 2: poor visual design

What is a poor visual design? Clashing colours, unreadable fonts, blurry images, too much or too less of everything. This can kill focus fast.

Back in my university days, I sometimes sat in lectures where slides had cut-off sentences or images covering the text. Even worse, having to be reading black text on grey or neon colours that make your eyes hurt.

People in a conference room listen to a presenter at a whiteboard. Large table, office chairs, laptops. Bright lighting, professional setting.

The result? My concentration was gone and hard to find, and the learning felt very hard and no fun at all, no matter how interesting the topic was. But it is easy to fix: keep your slide design clean. Stick to a limited colour palette, choose readable fonts, and add whitespace so the slide breathes. Also, choose a color palette that matches the subject or your company’s branding. Colors that support the message and not fight against it, make the presentation feel more professional and consistent. Professional design doesn’t just look nice. Instead, it boosts student engagement and makes your content easier to follow.

Mistake 3: lack of storytelling or flow

Without a clear story and goal, even the best slides feel random. A poor flow confuses the audience and lowers motivation. One big reason why presentations fall flat is that the speaker never explains why the topic matters. Without showing the importance or the gain that comes with listening and participating, motivation may drop fast. People want to know: “What’s in it for me?”, because it is their time they are taking to listen and learn from you.

So, to improve your presentation’s flow, start with a clear agenda that explains why the topic matters. But oou can get creative here, you do not need to have the standard agenda to raise awareness and explain the goals. Then group ideas logically and use transitions so the flow feels natural and that it makes sense. Always consider your audience’s level of knowledge. Therefore, try to step into their perspective. Finally, close with a summary or key takeaways to make sure, that it has become clear what they need to remember. Also that leads to repetition which leads to a better memory of the repeated bullet points. Following this helps learners connect the dots and improves teaching effectiveness.

Mistake 4: ignoring audience engagement

When you only lecture, people tune out. Maybe you know this from your own past when you were supposed to sit there and listen straight for probably hours compared to working in groups for the same amount of time. So, research also shows that active learning is far more effective than passive listening.

A person presents to colleagues in a meeting room. A corkboard with sticky notes is in the background. Laptops and papers are on the table.

To boost student engagement, try to break that pattern. Ask questions, run quick polls, or introduce short discussions. Vary your tone, pause for effect, and keep eye contact. Even a mini-interaction like “Who has experienced this before?” keeps people awake and makes them think themselves. The best would be to make it completely interactive. But while this Is not always possible, try to make it as interesting and interactive as possible. When you have no choice but talking and explaining for a while without interaction, try to make it as relatable as possible by great examples.

Mistake 5: neglecting practice and timing

Let’s say, your presentation is perfect. Does that mean, you will hold the perfect presentation? Sadly no. You know these people where you can’t stop listening even if you’re not highly interested? This is how you want to deliver your presentation. Therefore, rehearsing is very important. Skipping rehearsal leads to awkward pacing and overshooting the time limit. That hurts your credibility.

Here’s what works:

Practice with your phone – Record yourself. It may feel odd, but you’ll notice if you’re too monotone or too fast. If that’s too much, just speak out loud while practicing—it already helps.
Do test runs with friends – Present it to a friend or colleague. Right after that, write down what felt difficult or weird to you, and ask for feedback. This strengthens your presentation skills before the real one and it shows where you can improve. Having worked on atopic for long may make you blind for any parts that leave the listener confused or what may cause problems.

And the golden rule: respect the clock. Finishing on time shows professionalism and keeps your audience happy. Also it says that you are respecting the time of your audience.

Mistake 6: relying too much on technology

Remember: overloading your talk with animations, effects, and tools can backfire. Researchers even warn about “seductive details”—irrelevant visuals that overload attention and reduce learning outcomes. Keep in mind, that you are also talking while all this movement happens in the background. You are not creating a movie, but an interesting presentation which is supposed to support what you are saying. It does not replace you speaking.

The solution is a good balance. (Although I have seen people holding great talks without any presentations.) So, use tech to support your ideas, not to replace them. Keep animations simple. If you use animations or videos, make sure to add clear narration or give learners control to pause and replay. This helps them process the information at their own pace. And always carry a backup USB or store your slides in the cloud. If the tech fails, you’ll still be able to deliver an effective teaching presentation.

Conclusion

To sum up: great educational presentations are built on clarity, structure, and interaction. Avoid text overload, chaotic design, missing flow, low engagement, skipped rehearsal, and over-the-top tech.

Man presenting graphs on screen to two women taking notes in a bright office. Casual attire, collaborative atmosphere.

Remember: don’t just read out your slides or your flashcards. Try to engage. Don’t just show but connect with the audience. Small details can often make a huge difference. By applying these practices, you’ll boost engagement, strengthen your presentation skills, and create effective presentations that people will remember more easily. And maybe by that, people will enjoy going to presentations more in the future and will be more motivated.

To find out what tool works best for you, you can read about Canva vs. PowerPoint here.