Keys to Effective Lecture

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Keys to Effective Lecture

• Eight Steps to Better Teaching
• Developed by Terry Doyle
• Faculty Center for Teaching and Learning
• Ferris state University

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Effective Lecturing

• Successful Teaching is 80 Planning
• (Dr. Kitty Manley)

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Definition of Effective Lecture

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

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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.

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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

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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)

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Eight Steps to Effective Lecture

• 1.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)

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Eight Steps to Effective Lecture

• 6.Use visual aids/voice/movements/technology
• 7.Have a conclusion (an end)
• 8.Have students do something with the
• lecture material (Accountability)

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Step OneKnow Your Audience

• Know students names
• Know their learning stylesthey probably do not
  learn the way you do.
• Ask them what their strengths and weaknesses are
  as learners.
• Know their attention span limits-its not very
  long
• Know why they are taking the course-is it
  required?
• Know their background knowledge (content and/or
  skills)

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Build Community in the Classroom

• Students need to feel safe, valued and challenged
• Let them know diverse perspective are encouraged
  and valued
• Choices on what and how to learn should be given
  to students when ever possible (Zimmerman 1994)
• Remembering that learning is a social/emotional
  process as well as a cognitive process (How
  People Learn, 2000)

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Step 2Have a Map to Follow

• 1. Be guided by the underlying principles of the
  course, the most important cognitive functions
  and the most important content
• 2. Identify Significant Questions that the course
  will answer (Project Zero, Harvard School of
  Education)
• 3. Provide a daily lecture outline that
• provides a visual outline of the lecture
• provides a meaningful context for the lecture
  material
• provides an organization to the lecture material

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Giving Homework/Assignments

• Give the homework or other important out of class
  information at the beginning of class

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Step 3Grab the Students Attention

• Every lecture needs a beginning that does some of
  the following
• engages the audience
• prepares the audience
• builds curiosity
• creates challenge

• states a question
• offers a problem
• outlines the audiences role
• sets expectations

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Attention Grabbers

• The first five minutes of attention are the best
  five minutesuse them wisely
• personal experience
• story
• joke/cartoon
• challenge/problem/question
• tests or quizzes
• the unpredictable
• dress/movement/voice
• surprises

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Using Humor to get Attention
Wow! If we learn from our mistakes, I ought be a
genius by now

• George Abbott cartoon

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Humor gets Attention

• I was thinking of something
  more on paper

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Imagine More

• Ferris State University

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Step 4Recognize the Attention Span(s) of Students

• Reasons for short attention spans?
• Studies with college students and adults show
  that the brain doesn't work as well when it
  focuses on more than one task. If the challenge
  demands a lot of attention, mental performance is
  particularly poor David Walsh of the National
  Institute on Media and the Family,

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Reasons for short attention spans?

• "Students have a very short attention span, " she
  says, "in part because of the media that we as
  teachers and parents have encouraged them to
  spend their time with, and in part because we
  haven't taught them to have longer attention
  spans." Naomi Baron, the American University
  linguistics professor
• 10-15 minutes is what to expect

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Attention Span(s) of Students

• Secondly--Since the images our media uses change
  rapidly-- so does the shift of the students
  attention.
• (
  Vincent Ruggerio , A Guide to Critical Thinking)

www.java2s.com/Code/JavaImages/JFreeChartMult...
www.java2s.com/Code/JavaImages/JFreeChartMult...
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Attention Spans

• The student, not a scriptwriter or producer,
  determines how long he or she will attend to
  individual tasks. (James Zull, The Art of
  Changing the Brain)
• The current generations expectation is to be
  entertainedsaying they should not be this way is
  not the answer.

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Step 5Plan an Activity for the Students in the
Middle of the Lecture

• Break up lectures by using small 2-3 person
  groups to write, discuss, summarize, or solve a
  problem related to the lecture
• Have students rise up and stretch at the
  mid-point of the lecture-breathing is good for
  the brain

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Step 5Plan an Activity for the Students in the
Middle of the Lecture

• Lecture with an end of class quiz every
  dayresearch has shown this to raise long term
  retention of course material
• (http//www.accd.edu/sac/history/keller/ACCDitg/S
  Snote.htm)
• Have students prepare study questions before
  lecture and then discuss them at the mid point of
  the lecture for 10 minutes

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Step 5Plan an Activity for the Students in the
Middle of the Lecture

• Have a Question Box in the class with discussion
  topics related to the lecturepull one or two out
  at the mid point and have a 10 minute discussion
• Have students write a test question or a study
  guide question based on the first part of the
  lecture
• The key is that the activity is meaningful and
  relates to understanding the lecture material.

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Step 6Use 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 thoughtbut not be a
  distraction.
• 4. Should increase the effectiveness and
  efficiency of the presentation.

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If teaching about the brain this image is helpful
www.cyh.com/HealthTopics/Library/brain.gif
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When Using Visual Aids Dont

• Dont talk to your slidesall the audience will
  know about you is what the back of your head
  looks like.
• Let the slides speak for themselves. Dont read
  the slides word-for-word. It will bore the
  students and is redundant.
• Dont put too much information on any one slide.

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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
  takingstudents should not spend time writing
  large amounts of information from overheads or
  slideswhen students are writing they are not
  listening
• Remember you are the central force behind your
  lecture not your slides

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Voice and Movements

• Not many of us are motivational speakersbut
  we dont 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
• Dont talk to the chalk/white board

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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.

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Movements

• Your location in the classroom can force
  students to pay closer attentionespecially if
  you are standing right next to them.

www.bath.ac.uk/.../summerschool/images/lab2.jpg
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Step SevenHave a Conclusion to the Lecture

• Lectures should be planned to have an endingnot
  just a last word for that day
• The ending might include
• 1.A summary of the days main points
• 2.A recap of the questions that were answered
  that day
• 3.The solution to the problem for that day

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Step SevenHave a Conclusion

• An activity for the students
• A one sentence summary
• A written accounting of the most important
  point/or most confusing point
• A one question quiz
• Listing of test worthy information from that days
  lecture
• A chance for students to ask questions

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Step EightHave 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.
• ExampleFor most students a minimum of 3-5 uses
  of semantic information is needed for that
  information to form long-term memories
• (Sprenger 1999)

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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

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Step EightHave 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.

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Final Tips

• As you lecture stop to check students
  comprehensionthe one who does the talking does
  the learning( T. Angelo)hear from your students
• Keep the presentation freshvary your classroom
  routinea certain degree of unpredictability is a
  positive motivator
• Use a multitude of tools to enhance your
  lecturesrole play, guest speakers, video,
  websites, demonstrations

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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 classsome can be handled by e-mail
• Focus on what concepts need to be taught not
  what concepts do the students need to knowlets
  the students learn on their own those things that
  they can
• Limit lecture to 4-5 main pointstoo 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.

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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)

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References for Effective Lecturing

• http//www-ctl.stanford.edu/teach/handbook/chklste
  fflec.html
• http//www.uoregon.edu/tep/library/articles/lectu
  ring.html
• http//www-ctd.ucsd.edu/hndbk/9lect.html
• http//www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/MinnCon/lecture
  1.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.

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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.

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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 Queens University in Kingston, Ontario

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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
  413781, 2001.
• Damasio AR The Feeling of What Happens Body
  and Emotion in the Making of Consciousness,
  Harcourt Brace, New York, 1999, 2000.

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References for Effective Lecturing

• Sylwester, R. A Celebration of Neurons An
  Educators Guide to the Human Brain, ASCD1995
• 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.

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References for Effective Lecturing

• Ratey, J. MD A Users 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