Teaching Strategies (con't)
EFFECTIVE LECTURES
The Teaching and Learning Center has assembled a Re: Sources packet titled "Effective Lecturing" which contains several articles pertaining to developing and supplementing lectures. Contact the Center if you would like a copy. The TLC library has a number of books on this topic.
Lecturing is still the foundation of most courses in higher education (see "The Large Lecture Class: Bane or Backbone of the University?" by Linda Worley in Teaching at UK, Vol. 2, No. 1). It has a number of strengths as a pedagogical tool, but also possesses some serious drawbacks when viewed through the lens of a learning-centered paradigm. When coupled with sufficient opportunities for students to reflect, process, and apply the lecture information, a lecture can be very effective.
The Components of Effective Lecturing
The art of lecturing can be refined in many ways. One way is to learn the phases of an effective presentation; another is to maximize the impact of each of the four components at play in each lecture situation--the lecturer, the material, the delivery, and the audience.
Phases of a Lecture
An effective presentation includes several phases: the "set," "body," and "closure". At the beginning of the presentation, the lecturer needs to establish the "set" by:
- by introducing the content,
- stating the value of the material and objectives for the lecture,
- assessing the audience's knowledge base, and
- creating interest in the topic.
During the "body" of the lecture, the lecturer should:
- outline the major points,
- repeat points in different ways,
- make connections within the talk to past and future information, and
- show an internal consistency or logic to the presentation.
These first two phases should be supplemented with handouts, readings, etc. and related to the students' prior knowledge.
The important last step is to provide "closure" by:
- summarizing the major points,
- referring back to the original "set" phase, and
- not introducing new material.
Maximizing Impact and Learning
See "Using Powerpoint to Enhance Presentations" by Rick Roth (Journalism & Telecommunications, UK) in Teaching at UK, Vol. 2, No.3. The most effective lectures share the following characteristics. Many of these characteristics seem self-evident, but as anyone who has been to a disorganized, unclear, and boring presentation knows, are not always put into practice.
During an effective lecture, the lecturer is:
- knowledgeable, prepared, clear, having reviewed and mentally organized the material;
- enthusiastic, interested;
- personable, inviting participation, communicating openly and honestly, listening attentively and respectfully; and
- attentive, making adjustments as required by time, distractions, and the audience.
The presentation material is:
- organized;
- appropriate for the level of the course, the audience, the course goals;
- relevant to the course objectives and the topic at hand; and
- limited in content so that the major points are clear, generalizations and principles are emphasized.
The delivery of the lecture is marked by:
- variety, using visual, auditory, kinesthetic modalities if possible, using AV supplements, incorporating demonstrations and provocative questions, problems or controversies, and teaching strategies such as one-minute papers, small group work, etc.;
- effective overheads which are large enough to see, limited in amount of material and number (ca. 10-15 per 30 minutes), and which are given enough time on the screen to be processed; and
- interaction between the lecturer and audience through eye contact, asking questions with a "wait time," and pauses to allow the students to process the material.
The instructor needs to help the audience by:
- involving them, perhaps through active learning strategies;
- facilitating the process of constructing new knowledge through assessing previous knowledge in pretests, interviews, surveys, using advance organizers in the form of structured outlines to build on the base, and consciously linking new information to what is already known; and
- recognizing diverse learning styles.
Limitations of Lectures for Learning
Research on lecturing & learning shows:
- Students do not pay attention 40% of the time;
- Students took notes on only 20% of the content during the last 10 minutes of class;
- Confusion and boredom set in after 10 minutes of lecturing.
Even if all the characteristics of a good lecture are present, mounting evidence shows that uninterrupted lectures are essentially a poor means of producing learning. One study of student attentiveness (Pollio, 1984) suggests that students are not attending to the lecture 40% of the time. Another study on student acquisition of lecture content looked at students' note-taking behaviors. Students recorded 70% of the content during the first ten minutes of lecture and only 20% during the last ten minutes (Hartley & Davies, 1978). Interviewing an audience 24 hours after a lecture revealed that audience members recalled only insignificant details and that the details remembered were generally wrong (Verner & Dickinson, 1967). Finally, one particularly disconcerting study (Lloyd, 1967) charted the learning curve of a class hour. The investigator found that after an initial settling-in period of five minutes at the start of a lecture, students assimilated material well for only the next five minutes. Confusion and boredom began to set in during the next ten to twenty minutes. Assimilation of content fell off rapidly, picking up again only toward the end of the lecture when the students were revived by the knowledge that the lecture would soon be over!
Cashin (1990) summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the lecture method:
| Strengths | Weaknesses | |
Conveys large amounts of information | Emphasizes listening only |
| Communicates to many listeners at one time | Students are passive |
| Covers material not readily available | Attention wanes quickly |
| Material can be organized in a special way | Information is quickly forgotten |
| Reveals lecturer's interest in the subject | Little feedback to instructor |
| Models discipline's approach to subject | Requires an effective speaker |
| Maximum teacher control | Not well suited for higher-order thinking |
| Minimum threat to student | Not well suited for complex material |
| Appeals to learning by listening |
For strategies involving interactive learning, see Ken Jones, Interactive Learning Events: A Guide for Facilitators. This book is available for your perusal at the Teaching and Learning Center, 7 Gillis Building.
Posted July 1, 1997
http://www.uky.edu/UndergraduateStudies/tlc/topic/teaching2.html
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