Keys to Effective Lecture

Eight Steps to Better TeachingDeveloped by Terry Doyle

Faculty Center for Teaching and LearningFerris state University

Effective LecturingSuccessful Teaching is 80% Planning

หนึ่งในนัน้คือการใชส้ื่อเป็น(Dr. Kitty Manley)

Definition of Effective Lecture

Lecture should be used and is most effective when it presents information students can not easily learn on their own.

Definition of Effective Lecture

Information that is complex and difficult to understand is a candidate for lecture.

Information that requires a professional to organize it so it can be understood by novices likely needs to be lectured.

Definition of Effective Lecture The most effective spoken tools for

helping students to understand lectured material are analogies, metaphors, similes, and examples that represent concrete images that connect to the students’ backgrounds

Definition of Effective Lecture

An effective lecture includes the use of images that illustrate the concepts and ideas being discussed.

Images are among the most powerful teaching tools available. Vision is central to any concrete experience we have. In many ways, our brain is a “seeing” brain ( James Zull p. 137)

Eight Steps to Effective Lecture1.Know your audience (students)

2.Have a map to follow (lecture outline)

3.Grab the students’ attention (have a beginning)

4.Recognize students’ attention span

5.Plan an activity for students (have a middle)

Step 6—Use Visual Aids/Voice/Movement and Technology to Hold Attention and Enhance Understanding

Visual aids: 1.Should attract and hold the students’

attention. 2. Should aid the organization, illustration and

clarification of the lecture. 3. Should encourage active thought—but not

be a distraction. 4. Should increase the effectiveness and

efficiency of the presentation.

www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/Library/brain.gif

If teaching about the brain this image is helpful

When Using Visual Aids Don’t…

Don’t talk to your slides—all the audience will know about you is what the back of your head looks like.

Let the slides speak for themselves. Don’t read the slides word-for-word. It will bore the students and is redundant.

Don’t put too much information on any one slide.

When Using Visual Aids Pause after highlighting points on a slide. Give

students time to absorb the information

A lecture is not an exercise in note taking—students should not spend time writing large amounts of information from overheads or slides—when students are writing they are not listening

Remember you are the central force behind your lecture not your slides

Voice and Movements

Not many of us are motivational speakers—but we don’t have to be boring

In planning the lecture include thinking about where you can use your voice for emphasis, demonstration, exaggeration, surprise etc.

Students sitting in the back should be able to hear you clearly

Use your voice as an attention getting tool Don’t talk to the chalk/white board

Movements

The average TV commercial changes the camera angle (and therefore the focus of the viewer) 15-30 times in 30 seconds.

Students today are conditioned to expect changes in their viewing focus.

The location of where we hear information (episodic memory) is one of many memory aids students can use.

Movements Your location in the classroom can force

students to pay closer attention—especially if you are standing right next to them.

www.bath.ac.uk/.../summerschool/images/lab2.jpg

Step Eight—Have Students do something with the Lecture Material

Current memory research indicates that most learning occurs OUTSIDE the classroom when students read, reflect, write or experience the information given in lecture. (Sprenger, 2005)

The sooner and more often students engage with the material the more likely they will learn it.

Example—For most students a minimum of 3-5 uses of semantic information is needed for that information to form long-term memories

(Sprenger 1999)

What should students do to learn the lecture material?

Write summaries of the lecture material Make mind maps of the information Answer question about the information Prepare for a quiz on the information Make up test questions from the information Write in a journal/reflect on the information

Step Eight—Have Students do something with the Lecture Material

The key is the more the students use the lecture information the better they will retain it. The more they think about how the lecture information connects to what they already know the deeper their understanding will become.

Final Tips

As you lecture stop to check students’ comprehension—the one who does the talking does the learning( T. Angelo)—hear from your students

Keep the presentation fresh—vary your classroom routine—a certain degree of unpredictability is a positive motivator

Use a multitude of tools to enhance your lectures—role play, guest speakers, video, websites, demonstrations

Final Tips Decide in advance when you will take questions and

what you will do with questions that require long explanations or are questions not share by many in the class—some can be handled by e-mail

Focus on “what concepts need to be taught not what concepts do the students need to know”—lets the students learn on their own those things that they can

Limit lecture to 4-5 main points—too much information will result in less understanding –not more

Write your test questions the same day you give the lecture to increase accuracy of test questions.

The Final Final Tip

Fill your lectures with analogies, metaphors and examples that are real world to better connect to the students’ backgrounds

The brain is an analog processor, meaning essentially, that it works by analogy and metaphor. It relates whole concepts to one another and looks for similarities, differences, or relationships between them. It does not assemble thoughts and feelings from bits of data (Ratey, 2002, Users Guide to the Brain)

References for Effective Lecturing http://www-ctl.stanford.edu/teach/handbook/chklstefflec.html http://www.uoregon.edu/~tep/library/articles/lecturing.html http://www-ctd.ucsd.edu/hndbk/9lect.html http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/MinnCon/lecture1.html Andrews, P. H. ( 1985). Basic Public Speaking. New York: Harper and Row. Baird, J.E. (1974). The Effects of "Previews" and "Reviews" upon

Audiences Comprehension of Expository Speeches of Varying Quality and

Complexity. Central States Speech Journal. 25, 119127. Beatty, M.J. (1988). Situational and Predispositional Correlates of

Public Speaking Anxiety. Communication Education. 37, 28-39.

References for Effective Lecturing Frederick, P.J. (1986). The Lively Lecture-8 Variations. College Teaching.

34, 43-50. Knapp, M.L. (1976). Communicating with Students. Improving College

and University Teaching. 24, 167-168. Lucas, S. E. ( 1983). The Art of Public Speaking. New York: Random

House. McKeachie, W.J. (1980). Improving Lectures by Understanding

Students' Information Processing. In New Directions for Teaching and Learning:

Learning, Cognition, and College Teaching, edited by Wilbert J. McKeachie. San

Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 25-35. Weaver, R.L. (1982). Effective Lecturing Techniques: Alternatives to

Classroom Boredom. New Directions in Teaching. 7, 31-39.

References for Effective Lecturing Bjork, R. A. (1994) Memory and Metamemory consideration in

the training of human beings. In J. Metcalfe & A. Shimamura (Eds) Metacognition: Knowing about Knowing pp. 185-205. Cambridge, MA MIT Press.

Elizabeth Campbell Teaching Strategies to Foster "Deep" Versus "Surface Learning, Centre for University Teaching( based on the work of Christopher Knapper, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Instructional Development Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario

References for Effective Lecturing Damasio, A. R. (1994). Descartes' error: Emotion, reason, and

the human brain. New York, NY, Grosset/Putnam.

Diamond, Marion. (1988). Enriching Heredity: The Impact ofthe Environment on the Brain. New York, NY: Free Press.

Damasio AR: Fundamental Feelings. Nature 413:781, 2001.

Damasio AR: The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness, Harcourt Brace, New York, 1999, 2000.

References for Effective Lecturing Sylwester, R. A Celebration of Neurons An Educator’s Guide to

the Human Brain, ASCD:1995

Sprenger, M. Learning and Memory The Brain in Action by, ASCD, 1999

How People Learn by National Research Council editor John

Bransford, National Research Council, 2000

Kolb, D. A. (1981) 'Learning styles and disciplinary differences'. in A. W. Chickering (ed.) The Modern American College, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

References for Effective Lecturing

Ratey, J. MD :A User’s Guide to the Brain, Pantheon Books: New York, 2001

Zull, James. The Art of Changing the Brain.2002, Stylus: Virginia Weimer, Maryellen. Learner-Centered Teaching. Jossey-Bass, 2002