Ideas on Teaching
LECTURES:
Organizing Them and Making Them Interesting
by
Dr. Arletta Bauman Knight
When one is preparing a lecture there are two major components
that should be considered. First, the lecture should be organized
in a way that aids comprehension and retention, and second,
in order to maintain student attention, the lecture should be
made as interesting as possible. The following paragraphs
focus on these two major components.
Part I: Organizing the Lecture
The initial step in preparing a lecture is to first determine
the objectives for the lecture. In other words, a decision must
be made as to what you want students to "take away with
them" when the lecture is over, i.e., "What do you
want your students to learn?" For example, the purpose
of the lecture may be to help students (a) learn how to solve
a problem, (b) comprehend and remember three or four major issues,
(c) demonstrate effective methods of analysis, etc. The focus
of your preparation should never be "What am I going to
lecture about?" but rather "What do I want
my students to learn?"
Rules to Guide Organization:
A lecture should be organized in much the same way that a public
speech is organized. That is, it should have an introduction,
a body, and a conclusion. The function of each of the three
major sections of the lecture is as follows:
"Tell your students what you're going to tell them."
"Tell them."
"Then tell them what you told them."
Introduction: "Tell your students what you're going
to tell them."
Too many times the professor simply walks into the room and
begins talking. When this occurs there has been no attempt made
to prepare the students for what is to come.
I. Prepare your students to learn by giving them a preview
of the days events. (A good method is to write the days agenda
on the board.) When you are previewing the days events, share
with your students the objectives and goals you have for this
class session. (You may want to write these on the board as
well.) By sharing this information with your students, you
accomplish at least two tasks:
(1) you have established a plan/focus for the day and can
readily get back on course if you go "astray,"
and
(2)by knowing what they are supposed to have learned by
the end of the class, students can speak up if they are
not "learning that."
II. Be sure that students have a sense of the "Big Picture."
That is, at the beginning of your lecture, tie todays topics/issues
into what happened at the last class period and to the plan
for the whole course. i.e., what will be happening the rest
of the semester.
Body: "Tell them"
After the students have been prepared to learn (by the introduction),
they are now ready for the major topic/issues that will be presented
in the lecture. The structure of the body of the lecture is
critical for comprehension and retention.
"Chunk" the Information
The body of the lecture should be "chunked" into three
or four main ideas or issues. By chunking the information we
are providing a framework for students to more readily assimilate
what they are hearing in the lecture. Learners can much more
easily understand and retain four main ideas than a long narrative
of information.
Think of these chunks as hooks on which students can hang
ideas. When students are reflecting on what they heard in
the lecture, they are much more likely to remember the central
issues that we have provided as "hooks." Once the
hooks are in place, i.e., reinforced in the lecture, students
have them as a device on which to "hang" the details
that are involved.
Summarize and Preview
Between each major point (or "chunk") and at each
natural break in the flow of the content of your lecture, summarize
what you have just covered and give the students an overview
or preview of what is to come next. With this method, we are
providing continuity for our students (i.e., we are tying it
together) so that they always have a grasp of the big picture.
We are also building redundancy into the lecture. It is this
redundancy which helps to reinforce the essential ideas.
Conclusion: "Tell them what you told them."
After you have provided context for the students in the introduction
of the lecture, given them chunks of information in the body
of the lecture, you are now ready to tie everything together
with a summary of all that was covered i.e., "tell them
what you told them." Depending upon the complexity of the
information, the summary may be either brief or detailed.
It is also good, at this point, to not only summarize but to
"pull back" and comment on the relative significance
of todays topic and its relationship to some larger picture
or topic. You may also wish to conclude the days agenda with
instructions about what students are responsible for before
the next class period.
Part II: Make the Lecture Interesting
Once the lecture has been clearly organized, it is time to
add "personality." We all know that the lecture will
certainly be more effective if we maintain student attention.
We can enhance the prospect of keeping students attentive by
employing various techniques to make the lecture interesting.
While the following paragraphs list several methods for enlivening
our lectures, we must first reinforce two very basic strategies
for personalizing the lecture. They are: (a) establish and maintain
eye contact with the students, i.e., look directly into
the students' eyes as you are speaking to them, and (b) learn
the students' names and call on them by name as often
as possible. These are very fundamental techniques that should
be implemented anytime one is interacting with students.
In addition, perhaps the most critical component of a good
lecture is to intersperse teacher talk with student activity.
That is, "break-up" your lecture at frequent intervals.
Fifteen to twenty minutes is about the upper range of students
ability to concentrate. At the end of fifteen minutes (twenty
at the most) break-up the lecture by introducing some kind of
activity that engages the students.
Some general suggestions for breaking-up the lecture along
with methods for making it more interesting are listed below.
Breaking up the Lecture
Enhanced Lecture (See Appendix I)
This document provides four different activities
to engage students at various intervals throughout
the lecture.
Use groups/team learning
The use of groups provides an opportunity for
all students to participate.
Engage students in whole-class discussion
Come to class prepared with intriguing questions
to generate class participation.
Role-Play
In a foreign language class one professor placed
labels with different parts of speech around the
necks of a group of students. The students were
then instructed to stand as their label (part
of speech) would appear in a sentence. The exercise
was enlivened by having the "verb" which
was a girl, link arms with the "noun"
which was a boy. Anywhere the noun went in the
sentence, the verb had to follow.
Paraphernalia
Use props:
For example, if you are going to be talking about
the "evils" of industrial pollution,
bring a small box to class that is labeled as
Pandora's Box. Inside the box, place slips of
paper which identify various kinds of pollutants.
At appropriate times during the lecture, individual
pollutants (the evils mentioned above) can be
literally "pulled" out of the box for
discussion.
Wear costumes,
For example, wear a campaign hat when you're
talking about the American political system.
Bring anything to class that is "real."
Bring items that students can touch/feel, smell,
taste, handle, etc. (Caution: be sure that all
students can be involved.)
Use Narratives
Self-disclose
Relate personal examples of your experience that
relate to the subject matter
Tell stories
The stories you tell may illustrate or amplify
the topic/issue or they may be stories about others
experiences. (Caution: they must be relevant to
the subject matter.)
Use illustrations/analogies
In order to illustrate the dangers of running a
red light, a professor asked students to reach into
a jar filled with 100 capsules, one of which was
cyanide. Their chances of getting the cyanide capsule
were the same as the chances of colliding with another
car if they ran a red light.
Use Audio/Visual Aids
Presentation Software such as Power Point
Video Tapes
Slides, etc.
Concluding Remarks
Hopefully, it has been made clear that the lecture method of
instruction does not have to be class time spent with students
watching the clock in anticipation of the end of the period,
while battling to stay awake. If one takes specific steps to
(a) make sure that the lecture has a clear, meaningful structure
and (b) include some mechanism for making it interesting, the
lecture can serve as a very effective teaching tool.
Appendix I
Enhanced Lecture Formats
Source: Active Learning: Creative Excitement in the Classroom
by Charles C. Bonwell and James A. Eison. ASHE-ERIC Higher Educ.
Rept. #1. Washington, D.C.: George Washington University, 1991.
1. Lecture with Periodic Pauses
Format:
Lecture 12-15 minutes
Pause for 2 minutes:
-students work in pairs to review, discuss and
revise their notes
(repeat this pattern three times)
Last 3 minutes of class: "Write everything you can
recall from the lecture."
-on a 65-item multiple-choice quiz given 12 days after
the last lecture, comprehension and retention of the lecture
material was consistently much better, in some cases up
to 2 letter grades better.
2. Lecture with Immediate Test
-based on the empirically based observation that people
comprehend and retain material better when tested quickly
and frequently.
Format: give a test on that day's lecture at the end of the
lecture, every time
Results: doubled the retention of the lecture material on
a
test given 8 weeks after the last lecture.
3. "Feedback" Lecture
Format: Before class: students do "study questions"
20 min.: lecture
10 min.: small groups discuss teacher-provided
question related to the lecture
20 min.: lecture
After class: students do "study questions"
Results: 99% of students liked the method and 93% said they
in fact did do the study questions before and after class.
4. "Guided" Lecture
Format: 30 min.: lecture (students take NO notes)
5 min.: students take notes on what they remember
15 min.: small groups discuss teacher-provided
question related to lecture
