Hey there! It's the start of a new week and we are moving ahead with the series Creating Captivating Presentations!

As a nurse educator, I know how challenging it can be to explain complex medical concepts to your students. Incorporating the right visuals can be a total game-changer and make your slide decks stand out! So that is this week's topic: Creating Effective Visuals.

📝 I didn't like the graphic I created last week, so I made a new one - more engaging right?

In case you missed last week - we did a short introduction and the guiding principles of creating effective slide decks. You can catch up here:

​Week 1 - Guiding Principles

This week, let’s explore some practical tips for creating visuals that improve comprehension and retention for your students.

🧠 Simplify Complex Concepts

Visuals can simplify tough topics, clarify relationships, and engage your students in a way that text alone just can’t match. We’ve all been there - staring at a sea of text, struggling to understand it all. But a well-placed diagram or illustration can make all the difference.

Let's look at an example. I am creating a slide deck about the circulatory system, specifically to review how blood moves through the heart. This is maybe your starting point:

Not all bad - a few solid principles are used here:

✅ Clear Headings – Well-placed headings guide the audience, breaking up content into manageable sections and improving readability.

🕵️‍♀️ Strategic Use of Bold Font – Highlighting key words or phrases in bold draws attention to the most critical points, making scanning easier.

🖼️ Relevant Image – A well-chosen image reinforces the message, adds visual interest, and keeps the audience engaged.

📋 Organized List Format – Bullet points or numbered lists structure information clearly, reducing cognitive load and enhancing comprehension.

Next, let's look at an improved example:

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This slide uses the principles above but with a few more essential concepts:

⚪️ White space - There is room to take notes. Leaving blank space allows for your students to write as they listen, which is shown to improve retention.

✍️ Note Taking Opportunities - Students are not just "given" the information; they have to work for it a little bit. If they want that chart filled out, they will need to listen.

As you lecture on this content, draw on the slide, label the parts, sketch the blood moving through, and discuss what happens at each phase. Students will often model your note-taking. And if it gets messy, that’s ok. If they need to revise, clarify, or update, that is all part of studying and learning.

🖼️ Anatomical Image - Instead of an image that is for visual appeal only, try to use illustrations or graphics that add learning value to your slides.

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📊 Clarify Relationships and Patterns

Visuals like charts, flowcharts, and infographics are perfect for highlighting connections and trends that are difficult to convey through text alone. A well-designed visual can simplify complex data, making it more accessible and memorable for the audience.

However, the effectiveness of these visuals depends on clarity and intentional design. When incorporating numbers and data points in slide decks, consider these key rules:

😌 Keep It Simple – Avoid cluttering charts with excessive data points. A clean, focused chart communicates insights more effectively.

✏️ Use Consistent Formatting – Maintain uniform fonts, colors, and styles across slides to ensure a professional and cohesive look. Minimal creative interpretation is key!

🔑 Highlight Key Takeaways – Instead of expecting the audience to interpret the data themselves, use callouts, bold text, or color contrast to emphasize the most important figures or trends.

💯 Limit Decimal Places – Round numbers appropriately to avoid unnecessary precision (e.g., use 52% instead of 52.347%), which can make data easier to digest.

📊 Choose the Right Chart Type – Use bar charts for comparisons, line graphs for trends over time, and pie charts only when illustrating simple proportions. Mismatching data to chart types can confuse rather than clarify.

📐 Provide Context – Always include labels, units, and sources so the audience understands what the numbers represent and how they were derived.

By following these principles, you can ensure that your data is both visually compelling and easy for your audience to grasp.

My friend, Dr. Echo Riveria, inspired this series, and she specializes in creating engaging slide decks. Here is an example from her website.

Here, we have great graphs, but nothing is truly highlighted. When I look at this, I am not sure what is most important or what I am supposed to take away from this slide. Compare this slide with the one below:

It is VERY clear what the biggest takeaway is - that 36% of children in this county are living in poverty. And that number is much higher than other regions in comparision. Take a minute to see if you can find this information in the previous slide, it is tough to pull out!

Dr. Rivera specializes in creating effective slides. Her website is a wealth of information. Of you can work with her 1:1 if you have a big presentation coming up!

Learn More about Dr. Rivera

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👀 Engage Your Audience

Nursing students have diverse learning styles, so mixing things up is essential to keep them engaged. Visuals like diagrams, illustrations, and interactive elements can add depth, variety, and excitement to your lessons.

Active note-taking is a great way to engage students with your slide deck as well. I have an article about this with a short video demonstration that you can learn more about how to implement this technique.

Watch the Video

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Also, consider simple visual tools like emojis. I use them frequently 🫣 … Just looking at this article, you can see the emojis break up the text, clearly identify the headings, and add a bit of character to the writing.

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🧠 Boost Retention and Recall

When you pair your explanations with clear, impactful visuals, you’re helping cement those key concepts in your students’ minds. This is crucial in nursing education, where they need to be able to recall and apply a ton of information.

Consider these images from the Memory Notebook of Nursing.

I included these when I asked students to make a chart of fluid volume assessment findings. Instead of using the text "fluid volume deficit", I just used these images. Having a visual to pair with a concept is incredibly powerful.

A Visual Teaching Tool BreakoutRN Decks are a great way to incorporate visual and tactile elements into your lessons. Check out the available case studies! ​ Learn More

🎨 Get Creating!

So what are you waiting for? Using these principles, you can incorporate or improve on the visuals in your nursing slide decks and watch your students’ comprehension and retention skyrocket. Let me know if you have any other questions!

See you next week, Martha

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113 Cherry Street #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205

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