Lecturing Better
LECTURING BETTER
We can all remember drifting off during a boring or confusing lecture, but when structured with active learning in mind, lecturing can be an effective practice that can facilitate meaningful learning.
On this page, we will cover:
- Structuring Your Lecture
- Engage Immediately and Often
- Effective Endings
- Additional Resources
- References
Structuring Your Lecture
Provide a Roadmap
Providing an outline of what will be covered in a particular section of class can help students organize their thinking and make connections with what they are learning. Skeletal outlines or roadmaps can also help students take more effective notes, directing students to the most important points that you want them to come away with from that day’s lecture.
Stick to One Idea
Covering more material does not mean that students will learn more (Nilson, 2010). Students learn more when they have the chance to apply the concepts they are learning. Try to limit yourself to just one main idea per lecture so that you can cover the content in detail and ensure deeper learning.
Model Thinking for Students
The content of your lecture should provide information beyond what students can get from just reading the textbook. In addition to new content, your lecture can be a time to model the thinking or problem solving of your discipline. For example, you could explain how the basic foundations you are discussing today led to an important discovery in your field, or discuss how you would approach further research on the given topic. When instructors are transparent about why they are doing what they are doing in lecture, students learn more.
Engage Immediately and Often
Engagement Triggers
Research has shown that students are most engaged at the start of class, so having students complete an activity before you lecture sets the tone that they are to be actively engaged, even when you are delivering information (Sousa, 2011). An engagement trigger can take a variety of forms, using both graded and non-graded activities like:
- Poll
- Word cloud
- One question multiple choice quiz
- Written reflection
Engagement triggers can be a place to utilize technology as well. For other active learning techniques to use as an engagement trigger, please see the Active Learning toolkit entry.
Utilize the Classroom Space
As you lecture, you can use your body and voice to keep students engaged. Modify the tone of your voice to emphasize important points and move around the classroom if you can, so you are not just having a conversation with the students in the first row.
Visuals and Examples
You can also keep students attentive while you are lecturing by including engaging visuals and using examples that are relevant to your student population. This will pique students’ interest and help them make connections with your topic.
Purposeful Pauses
The average student can sustain attention to one person lecturing for about 10-15 minutes. Breaking up the lecture into smaller segments can help students sustain their attention and digest the material. Planning deliberate pauses between lecture chunks can simply provide time for students to catch up on their notes or it can be a chance for students to apply what they just learned in an active learning exercise. Pauses can be a chance for students to review, recall, reflect, or analyze what they have learned, depending on the course level, the time of the semester, and/or the course content. For example, for a review exercise, you can have students compare their notes with a partner, reworking them and compiling clarifying questions to ask the instructor after the break (Bachhel & Thaman, 2014).
In addition to what students can work on during a lecture break, pauses also allow the instructor to circulate among students to check for understanding and/or to complete administrative tasks (like attendance) that you may have typically done at the start of the class period.
Effective Endings
Including a meaningful end to your lecture is just as important as starting off strong. Effective closings allow students time to actively reflect on what they learned in class and build connections with previous material. Exit tickets are a useful way to close a lecture because you can elicit instant feedback from students that can inform how you approach the next class. Having a structured activity at the end of class also provides a predictable class structure for students, signaling a time to wrap up any in-class activities and (hopefully) minimizing the urge for students to pack up early. Instructors should allow enough time (usually 5-10 minutes or so) for students to complete the closing activity. The specific activity can be tailored to the needs of the course. Various classroom assessment techniques can also be modified to use as an exit ticket.
Additional Resources
Harrington, C., & Zakrajsek, T. (2017). Dynamic lecturing: Research-based strategies to enhance lecture effectiveness. Stylus.
Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching. Jossey-Bass.
References
Bachhel, R., & Thaman, R. G. (2014). Effective use of pause procedure to enhance student engagement and learning. Links to an external site. Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research, 8(8), XM01–XM03.
Nilson, L. B. (2010). Teaching at its best: A research-based resource for college instructors (3rd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Sousa, D. A. (2011). How the brain learns (4th ed.). Corwin.