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June 2003

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Teaching Breakfast List <[log in to unmask]>
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Wed, 11 Jun 2003 11:16:54 -0400
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Jim

Thanks so much for continuing to find these gems.  This might be another good topic for a later TB.

I need to speak with you about some computer difficulties.  I will be in touch.

Mike


-----Original Message-----
From:   Greenberg, James ([log in to unmask])
Sent:   Wed 6/11/2003 9:06 AM
To:     [log in to unmask]
Cc:	
Subject:             31 Tips on Improving Lectures

Teaching Breakfast Group,

The posting below give 31 practical tips on preparing and giving
lectures.  It is from Chapter 3, Refreshing Your Lecturing in The
Lecturer's Toolkit, A Practical Guide to Learning, Teaching &
Assessment, Second Edition, by Phil Race. Kogan Page, 120 Pentonville
Road London N1 9JN, UK (www.kogan-page.co.uk). 22883 Quicksilver
Drive, Sterling VA 20166-2012, USA. © Copyright Phil Race, 1998, 2001
Reprinted with permission.

           PRACTICAL POINTERS ON PREPARING AND GIVING LECTURES

These tips are designed to optimize the learning potential of
lectures, in particular with reference to teaching and learning
processes, and to remind you of the way in which large-group sessions
can pay real dividends to students.  Later sets of tips in this
chapter will look more specifically at using visual aids, handout
materials, and computer-managed presentation packages.

1. Make the most of opportunities when you have the whole group
together.  There are useful benefits of whole-group shared
experiences, especially for setting the scene in a new subject, and
talking students through known problem areas.  Use these sessions to
develop whole-group cohesion, as well as to give briefings, provide
introductions, introduce keynote speakers, and hold practical
demonstrations.

2. Make sure that lectures are not just 'transmit-receive' occasions.
Little is learnt by students just writing down what the lecturer
says, or copying down information from screens or boards.  There are
more efficient ways of providing students with the information they
need for their learning, including the use of handout materials,
textbooks and other learning resource materials.

3. Be punctual, even if some of your students are late.  Chat to the
nearest students while people are settling in.  Ask them, 'How's the
course going for you so far?' for example.  Ask them, 'What's your
favourite topic so far?' or, 'What are the trickiest bits so far?'

4. When you are ready to start, capture students' attention.  It is
often easier to do this by dimming the lights and showing your first
overhead, than by trying to quieten down the pre-lecture chatter by
talking loudly.  Do your best to ignore latecomers.  Respect the
courtesy of punctuality of those already present, and talk to them.

5. Make good use of your specific intended learning outcomes for each
lecture.  Find out how many students think they can already achieve
some of these - and adjust your approach accordingly.  Explaining the
outcomes at the start of the session, or including them in handout
materials given out to students, can help them to know exactly what
they should be getting out of the lecture, serving as an agenda
against which they can track their individual progress during the
minutes which follow.

6. Help students place the lecture in context.  Refer back to
previous material (ideally which a short summary of the previous
lectures at the beginning) and give them forewarning of how this will
relate to material they will cover later.

7. Use handout material to spare students from copying down lots of
information.  It is better to spend time discussing and elaborating
on information that students can already read for themselves.

8. Face the class when using an overhead projector, or computer-aided
presentations on-screen in the lecture room.  Practise in a lecture
room using your transparencies or slides as an agenda, and talking to
each point listed on them.  By placing a pen on a transparency you
can draw attention to the particular point on which you are
elaborating, maintaining vital eye contact with your students.

9. Work out some questions which the session will address.  Showing
these questions as an overhead at the beginning of the session is a
way of helping students to see the nature and scope of the specific
learning outcomes they should be able to address progressively as the
session proceeds.

10. Give your students some practice at note-making (rather than just
note-taking).  Students learn very little from just copying out bits
of what they see or hear, and may need quite a lot of help towards
summarizing, prioritizing, and making their notes their own
individual learning tools.

11. Get students learning by doing.  Just about all students get
bored listening for a full hour, so break the session up with small
tasks such as problems for students to work out themselves, applying
what you have told them, reading extracts from their handout
material, or discussing a question or issue with the students nearest
to them.  Even in a crowded, tiered lecture theatre, students can be
given things to do independently for a few minutes at a time,
followed by a suitable debriefing, so that they can compare views and
find out whether they were on the right track.

12. Variety is the spice of lectures.  Make sure that you building
into large-group lectures a variety of activities for students, which
might include writing, listening, looking, making notes, copying
diagrams, undertaking small discussion tasks, asking questions,
answering questions, giving feedback to you, solving problems, doing
calculations, putting things in order of importance and so on.

13. Ask the students how you are doing.  From time to time ask, 'How
many of you can hear me clearly enough?', 'Am I going too fast?', 'Is
this making sense to you?'  Listen to the answers and try to respond
accordingly.

14. Use lectures to start students learning from each other.  Getting
students to work in small groups in a lecture environment can allow
them to discuss and debate the relative merits of different options
in multiple-choice tasks, or put things in order of importance, or
brain-storm possible solutions to problems.  After they have engaged
which each other on such tasks, the lecturer can draw conclusions
from some of the groups, and give expert-witness feedback when needed.

15. Use lectures to help students make sense of things they have
already learnt.  It is valuable to make full use of the times when
all students are together to give them things to do, to allow them to
check out whether they can still do the things they covered in
previous sessions.

16. Use lectures to help shape students' attitudes.  The elements of
tone of voice of voice, facial expression, body language and so on
can be used by lecturers to bring greater clarity and direction to
the attitude-forming shared experiences which help students set their
own scene for a topic or theme in a subject.

17. Genuinely solicit students' questions.  Do not ask, 'Any
questions?' as you are picking up your papers at the end of a class.
Treat students' questions with courtesy even if they seem very basic
to you.  Repeat the question so all students can hear, and then
answer in a way that does not make the questioner feel stupid.

18. Do not waffle when stuck.  Do not try to bluff your way out of it
when you do not know the answers to some of the questions students
may ask.  Tell the questioners that you will find out the answers to
their questions before your next lecture with them - they will
respect you more for this than for trying to invent an answer.

19. Use some lecture time to draw feedback from students.  Large
group sessions can be used to provide a useful barometer of how their
learning is going.  Students can be asked to write on slips of paper
(or post-its) questions that they would like you to address at a
future session.

20. Use whole-class time to explain carefully the briefings for
assessment tasks.  It is essential that all students have a full,
shared knowledge of exactly what is expected of them in such tasks,
so that no one is disadvantaged by any differentials in their
understanding of the performance criteria or assessment schemes
associated with the tasks.

21. Show students how the assessors mind works.  This can be done by
devising class sessions around the analysis of how past examples of
students' work were assessed, as well as by going through in detail
the way in which assessment criteria were applied to work that the
class members themselves have done.

22. Record yourself on video every now and then.  Review the video to
help you see your own strengths and weaknesses, and look for ways to
improve your performance.  Your keenest critic is likely to be
yourself, so do not try to resolve every little habit or mannerism at
once; just tackle the ones that you think are most important, little
by little.  It maybe also be useful for a group of colleagues
together to look at each other's videos, and offer each other
constructive comments.  This is excellent practice for inspection or
other quality assessment procedures.

23. Use all opportunities to observe other people's lectures.  You
can do this not only in your own department, but also at external
conferences and seminars.  Watching other people helps you to learn
both from what others do well, that you might wish to emulate, and
from awful sessions where you resolve never to do anything similar in
your own classes.

24. Put energy and effort into making your lectures interesting and
stimulating.  A well-paced lecture which has visual impact and in
which ideas are clearly communicated can be a motivating shared
experience for students.  Become comfortable using overhead
projectors and audio-visual equipment in imaginative ways.

25. Watch the body language of your audience.  You will soon learn to
recognize the symptoms of 'eyes glazing over' when students are
becoming passive recipients rather than active participants.  That
may signal the time for one of your prepared anecdotes, or better,
for a task for students to tackle.

26. Do not tolerate poor behaviour.  You do not have to put up with
students talking, eating or fooling around in your lectures.  Ask
them firmly but courteously to desist, and as a last resort, ask them
to leave.  If they do not do so, you should leave yourself for a
short period to give them a cooling-down period.

27. Do not feel you have got to keep going for the full hour.
Sometimes you will have said all you need to say, and still have ten
or fifteen minutes in hand.  Do not feel you have to waffle on.  It
may come as a surprise to you, but your students may be quite pleased
to finish early occasionally.

28. Do not feel that you have to get through all of your material.
Even very experienced lecturers, when preparing a new lecture, often
overestimate what they can cover in an hour.  It is better to cover
part of your material well, than to try to rush through all of it.
You can adjust future sessions to balance out the content.

29. Use large-group sessions to identify and answer students'
questions.  This can be much more effective, and fairer, than just
attempting to answer their questions individually and privately. When
one student asks a question in a large-group session, there are often
many other students who only then realize that they too need to hear
the answer.

30. Help the shy or retiring students to have equal opportunity to
contribute.  Asking students in large groups to write questions, or
ideas, on post-its helps to ensure that the contributions you receive
are not just from those students who are not afraid to ask in public.
It can be comforting for students to preserve their anonymity in
asking questions, as they are often afraid that their questions may
be regarded as silly or trivial.

31. Come to a timely conclusion.  A large-group session must not just
fizzle out, but should come to a definite and robust ending.  It is
also important not to overrun.  It is better to come to a good
stopping place a few minutes early, than to end up rushing through
something important right at the end of the session.

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