Tips on Teaching: Specific Teaching Techniques

1. Lectures

Organizing Lectures and Making Them Interesting. Lecturing, when done well, can be an effective way to communicate information, ideas, passion, etc. Dr. Arletta Knight prepared this handout on two key components of effective lecturing.

Enhanced lectures. There are ways to make lectures more participatory, i.e., more active. This handout describes 4 ways to make students more active in a session that is still basically a lecture class.

2. Discussions

Leading Discussions. This handout presents some general principles for leading good discussions, and offers answers to questions that are frequently asked by faculty members about problems with discussion sessions.

3. Small Groups

Designing Effective Group Activities. Small groups can be a very effective way of promoting significant learning and active learning. Prof. Larry Michaelsen, a professor of Management at OU who is also a nationally-recognized expert on using small groups in college-level teaching, sets out some basic principles here. When problems occur with the use of small groups, the single more common cause is assignments that are poorly designed for small groups. This article describes how to write assignments that do work well. 

Three Keys to Using Learning Groups Effectively. This article, also by Prof. Larry Michaelsen, summarizes the important things to remember when using learning groups. 

4. Writing

Using Writing to Help Students Learn. Writing activities can be a powerful tool that teachers can use to promote high-quality student learning. What are the key concerns that teachers need to keep in mind when they formulate writing activities?

5. Computers