Lecturing Best Practices

[HigherEd7]

What advice can you give to improve your lecture? It gets a little boring to come to class and talk and students just sit there. Just trying to find ways to improve and get students engaged without the traditional me talk and you take notes.

[Caracal]

What advice can you give to improve your lecture? It gets a little boring to come to class and talk and students just sit there. Just trying to find ways to improve and get students engaged without the traditional me talk and you take notes.

Even in a pretty big class, you can incorporate a decent amount of discussion into a lecture. If it is at all possible, I try to incorporate visual images into powerpoint that I can ask questions about. Here's this graph or table, does anything about it surprise you? How is the German soldier portrayed in this propaganda poster? What do you notice about the way marriage is portrayed in this 1950s coffee ad? You can ask questions at other moments where students have the ability to easily engage without feeling like they need to know everything about some topic already.

I find that the advantage of this approach is that at minimum it breaks things up a bit, but it also can lead to students asking questions about something, and sometimes an actual discussion breaks out where they start responding to each other.

[sprout]

Someone recommended this to me early in my career:  What's the Use of Lectures?

Click-baity title but it's full of ways to incorporate all sorts of engagement techniques into a lecture, without throwing the lecture out entirely.

[ergative]

We have a huge undergraduate intro year-1 course, and one of our bright young hip TAs taught a module that incorporated Slido. The students loved it. As far as I can tell, it's no different than your standard clicker setup, except that it uses phones instead of school-issued tech that is mandatory and tiresome to remember--but that sense of engaging with your own gadget may be important. Or maybe it was just the change from park-and-bark lectures that have been so much the norm for so long.

[lightning]

Ahhh, the lecture, every nouveau teaching's whipping boy. How can we sell our latest teaching technique without positioning it against the bogey man.

First off, the lecture works, even it its old-school format. It's the student that doesn't. Teachers had to give up on the lecture, partly because too many professors gave up on students taking notes. And when I say note-taking, I don't mean the capture of, disseminated information via real-time auditory mediation, into written text. That's bulls**t. That's not note-taking, no matter what the ADA office says. There are automated transcription services for that now or you can be old-fashioned and record it. Or as my ADA office puts it, give them the "notes," the pptx, in advance--Ha Ha. 

When I say note-taking during lectures, I mean, the student who is prepared (from completing and keeping up with assigned readings and assignments correlated with the lecture), listens attentively, makes connections with the corresponding readings/assignments, asks the right questions, then identifies, summarizes, and connects, and then expresses those thoughts in their own original notes that make those thoughts stick and be applicable to future assignments/lectures/activities/questions/projects--all done in real-time. Lecturing is a highly interactive, effective, and sometimes pleasurable activity, if the students engage the lecture in this way. Yeah, tall order. If they can't do it, screw 'em. Challenge them to do so, after taking some time time to show them what they should have learned in high school how to take notes during a lecture or directing them to the remediation center where they can learn how to be a college student.

Lectures work. If the lecture format is not working, check to make sure it's not the student making it ineffective, before dismissing or modifying the lecture.

[polly_mer]

To take a slightly different tack than lightning, what is the goal of a given class meeting or portion thereof and what's the best way to achieve that goal?

What percentage of the students are engaged in their own education and have adequate background to benefit from whatever the goal of the given class meeting is?

A good discussion generally won't happen with underprepared/undermotivated students who resent being required to take the class and can't/won't/don't do the necessary preparation for a given session.  Think/pair/share, voting via phone/clicker, and other interactive techniques fall flat with people who can't/won't/don't engage, which can frustrate the students who prepared and attempt to engage.  Super Dinky lost the top of several cohorts who cited poor experiences in class with their colleagues who refused to doing the reading to be able to participate in discussions as reason for transferring to institutions with a larger fraction of academically prepared and engaged-in-their-own-education students. 

My "favorite" teaching moment was during a discussion in intro chemistry when the same question (word-for-word) was asked in class for the third time in a row in a 10-minute period.  The student who asked the question the first time to start us off shouted, "Dr. Mer literally just answered that question twice! We've been discussing that question for the past 10 minutes!  Where have you been?!"  They've been staring off into space and only just now tuned back in when the prompt of "any other questions on this topic?" was made.  That particular question is always asked by someone when we get to that section of the course, which is why I start that specific section with a discussion instead of just lecturing on the related points; that term, though, the section as a whole was so disengaged that it would have been less frustrating all around if I had just put the question on the board and then lectured on it.

A great demo may or may not actually convey the information to underprepared/undermotivated students.  I've been amazed at how audience affects the same demo at the same class level.  Some sections really get it and some sections take away nothing, even after the phones have been put away and everyone has been subject to the "one, two, three, eyes on me" exhortation.  Again, I've been amazed at how people can check out during demos that include fire, the bowling ball on the rope that one year did smash into my face due to a slip, or other demos that are fabulous live and generally go over well with general members of the public, but sometimes fall flat with people who flat out resent being present and have decided they won't do anything to advance their own learning.

A great lecture (one that does much more than simply repeat the material in the same way as other preparation) tends to fall flat for people who aren't prepped, but works fabulously for those who prepped and then need help putting the pieces together, one more example explained a different way, or a structure that helps make clear the main points and which details flesh out each point.

Many of us know research in favor of activities other than lecture like:

[A Harvard study], published Sept. 4 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that, though students felt as if they learned more through traditional lectures, they actually learned more when taking part in classrooms that employed so-called active-learning strategies.
...
"Often, students seemed genuinely to prefer smooth-as-silk traditional lectures," Deslauriers said. "We wanted to take them at their word. Perhaps they actually felt like they learned more from lectures than they did from active learning."
...
"Deep learning is hard work. The effort involved in active learning can be misinterpreted as a sign of poor learning," he said. "On the other hand, a superstar lecturer can explain things in such a way as to make students feel like they are learning more than they actually are."

Reference: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/09/study-shows-that-students-learn-more-when-taking-part-in-classrooms-that-employ-active-learning-strategies/

And yet, outside of the environments where students are academically prepared and motivated to do the work with faculty members who have substantially bought into active learning with substantially redesigned courses that are based on active learning, those of us with experience find a lot of resistance to active learning techniques from the students.  Some of that is justified:

Students also resist because active learning isn't always effectively designed. Neither are lectures, but when the teacher drones on and the content wanders from here to there, students can tune out and pretend that they're listening. Working with others to discuss what they need to know from the reading isn't all that productive when group members are prepared to varying degrees and the discussion occurs without some teacher-provided context. Objections to poorly designed and implemented active learning are justified.

Reference: https://www.teachingprofessor.com/topics/teaching-strategies/active-learning/students-resist-active-learning/

Vary your teaching methods. Some students may resist your attempts to integrate active-learning strategies simply because you rely too heavily on one kind of activity. You want your teaching to benefit both the extrovert who loves collaborative exercises and the bookworm who excels at in-class writing assignments. Mix it up on a regular basis and keep everyone on their toes.

Lecture sometimes. Finally, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are (still!) perfectly good reasons to lecture to your students -- some of the time. For one, you know a lot about the course topic and students will benefit from you telling them what you know. But perhaps more important, a lecture component can help increase the benefits of the learner-centered activities that take up the rest of class time. Get in the habit of closing every class period with a brief summary or synthesis of what you think your students learned in the preceding hour. Any students who are unsure about your new methods may appreciate the familiarity of a professor "re-emerging" for the last 10 minutes to captain the rudderless ship. By providing a conclusion to each class period, you'll help students build on what they learn from day to day, and help to reassure them that this brave new world isn't so scary after all.

Reference: https://chroniclevitae.com/news/893-why-students-resist-active-learning

[HigherEd7]

Great responses and information. I find it pretty frustrating that you spend hours reading and prepping for a great lecture, and students are not prepared, and when you ask them a question they have no idea what you are talking about.

[marshwiggle]

Ahhh, the lecture, every nouveau teaching's whipping boy. How can we sell our latest teaching technique without positioning it against the bogey man.

First off, the lecture works, even it its old-school format. It's the student that doesn't. Teachers had to give up on the lecture, partly because too many professors gave up on students taking notes. And when I say note-taking, I don't mean the capture of, disseminated information via real-time auditory mediation, into written text. That's bulls**t. That's not note-taking, no matter what the ADA office says. There are automated transcription services for that now or you can be old-fashioned and record it. Or as my ADA office puts it, give them the "notes," the pptx, in advance--Ha Ha. 

When I say note-taking during lectures, I mean, the student who is prepared (from completing and keeping up with assigned readings and assignments correlated with the lecture), listens attentively, makes connections with the corresponding readings/assignments, asks the right questions, then identifies, summarizes, and connects, and then expresses those thoughts in their own original notes that make those thoughts stick and be applicable to future assignments/lectures/activities/questions/projects--all done in real-time. Lecturing is a highly interactive, effective, and sometimes pleasurable activity, if the students engage the lecture in this way. Yeah, tall order. If they can't do it, screw 'em. Challenge them to do so, after taking some time time to show them what they should have learned in high school how to take notes during a lecture or directing them to the remediation center where they can learn how to be a college student.

Lectures work. If the lecture format is not working, check to make sure it's not the student making it ineffective, before dismissing or modifying the lecture.

Reading all of this raises a question: Why not just videotape lectures and have students watch them? If the effectiveness of lectures is all about the effort the students put in to take notes and so on, what , if any, benefit is there to actually being in the same room? Notes can be taken just as well from a video; arguably more so since the video can be paused, rewound, etc.

[HigherEd7]

Then what would you do in a face to face class?

Ahhh, the lecture, every nouveau teaching's whipping boy. How can we sell our latest teaching technique without positioning it against the bogey man.

First off, the lecture works, even it its old-school format. It's the student that doesn't. Teachers had to give up on the lecture, partly because too many professors gave up on students taking notes. And when I say note-taking, I don't mean the capture of, disseminated information via real-time auditory mediation, into written text. That's bulls**t. That's not note-taking, no matter what the ADA office says. There are automated transcription services for that now or you can be old-fashioned and record it. Or as my ADA office puts it, give them the "notes," the pptx, in advance--Ha Ha. 

When I say note-taking during lectures, I mean, the student who is prepared (from completing and keeping up with assigned readings and assignments correlated with the lecture), listens attentively, makes connections with the corresponding readings/assignments, asks the right questions, then identifies, summarizes, and connects, and then expresses those thoughts in their own original notes that make those thoughts stick and be applicable to future assignments/lectures/activities/questions/projects--all done in real-time. Lecturing is a highly interactive, effective, and sometimes pleasurable activity, if the students engage the lecture in this way. Yeah, tall order. If they can't do it, screw 'em. Challenge them to do so, after taking some time time to show them what they should have learned in high school how to take notes during a lecture or directing them to the remediation center where they can learn how to be a college student.

Lectures work. If the lecture format is not working, check to make sure it's not the student making it ineffective, before dismissing or modifying the lecture.

Reading all of this raises a question: Why not just videotape lectures and have students watch them? If the effectiveness of lectures is all about the effort the students put in to take notes and so on, what , if any, benefit is there to actually being in the same room? Notes can be taken just as well from a video; arguably more so since the video can be paused, rewound, etc.

[Aster]

What Polly said.

[downer]

Try listening or watching to some of the Great Courses. You can get some for free, including from libraries. There's nothing wrong with traditional lectures if you have students who can listen.

I lecture because it is easiest for me. If I have time or I know the material extremely well, I prepare some kind of Socratic method. Quite often these days I will show short lectures by other people who are experts in the field.

I'm a bit suspicious of the whole idea of "best practices." What is good in one context is not good in another. Being a good educator requires trial and error, and there will be a lot of error before you find what works.

[mythbuster]

One of my favorite student comments in one of my earlier courses was (paraphrasing) " It's 8:15 in the morning, I don't WANT to talk to my neighbor about anything at that hour!". And this was at a super-elite school.
   Here at barely selective, compass point comprehensive, the big issue I have is that students can't discuss course topics because they don't understand the vocabulary being used (science class). There is also a huge peer pressure here not to appear too smart- so even more reluctance to be seen using them fancy words. So I have to spend a lot of time lecturing just to get us to the point of asking an interesting question. I do use clickers, and they help with getting some level of feedback. But I also want to teach my students to be able to think and concentrate on something other than their phone, so I only use them at designated times, like the start of class, and then they are told to put them away.
     

[KiUlv]

There's a lot of discussion around "flipping the classroom" at my institution. Here's a link to a different university's website on it as a starting point: https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/flipped-classroom

There is also much use in larger lectures of interactive technology. I can't think of the one many professors use (I teach smaller, graduate classes), but Mentimeter is the same type of interactive tech.

I typically use a combination of interactive lecture and student-prepared discussions.

[HigherEd7]

Interesting concept, but what if your students are not engaged or have not done the assignment, which means they can't participate and the members in their group can't as well. The what do you do?

There's a lot of discussion around "flipping the classroom" at my institution. Here's a link to a different university's website on it as a starting point: https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/flipped-classroom

There is also much use in larger lectures of interactive technology. I can't think of the one many professors use (I teach smaller, graduate classes), but Mentimeter is the same type of interactive tech.

I typically use a combination of interactive lecture and student-prepared discussions.

[mamselle]

Start with a dance.

Seriously.

M.