Strategies for Effective Lectures
Lecturing is an efficient method to transmit information to a large group of students in a short time. However, in the classical lecturing style, students are passive. Especially with a larger group of students, even if the instructor asks a couple of questions during the lecture, very few students get the chance to actively participate. For student involvement, we can use interactive techniques that will allow all students to actively participate, no matter how big a student group we are working with. The techniques below also foster a deeper level of learning and thus increase retention.
1. Provide a Roadmap for the lecture
An outline makes the structure of a lecture more transparent. This type of scaffolding increases students’ readiness to learn, enables them to follow the lecture more easily, take better notes and conceptualize the connections between different ideas, themes, etc. An outline can be provided before the lecture to help the students come to class prepared, or it can also be presented very briefly at the beginning of the lecture.
2. Chunk - Chew - Check Method:
In order to help learners understand, take notes on, and retain the information presented in the lectures, it is important to break a lecture down into smaller chunks. Chunk-Chew-Check Method is one way to break up lectures into more digestible parts and adds interaction and active learning elements to liven up the classroom.
Stage 1 - Chunk:
Lecture for 10 minutes.
Stage 2 - Chew:
Following the first 10 minutes of the lectures, spare around 2 minutes to enable learners to digest what has just been presented. During these 2 minutes, you might simply summarise what you have presented, or employ one of the following strategies:
Turn and talk
Turn to the person sitting next to you and summarise what you have just learned.
With the person sitting next to you, discuss the following question / do the following task.
Ask a question to your neighbour about the content of the presentation so far. Listen to their answer, and comment on the accuracy of their response. Then listen to their question and answer.
Stop and jot
Let’s pause and see what you have understood. For two minutes, write the keywords / key ideas / a brief summary / all that you can remember about the part of my lecture you have just listened to.
I will now give you two minutes (individually or in pairs) to write down one question and its answer based on my lecture, and one question about a concept in my lecture that you would like to learn more about.
OK. Here is a question about the information I have just been presenting. (.....?). Answer the question as best as you can on a piece of paper. When you finish, check your response with another student.
I am going to pause for 1 or 2 minutes. I’d like you to compare your notes so far with another student. If there is something you missed, fill in those gaps.
Stage 3 - Check:
Briefly check students’ understanding using a short formative assessment tool to help you understand to what extent the students have grasped the concept, and whether there are any misconceptions or learning gaps that you need to address before moving on to the next part of your lecture.
Ask a critical thinking question to get students to demonstrate their understanding.
Use a clicker/poll (e.g. Tophat) to ask one or two questions on the key idea(s) that you have covered in your lecture.
3. Giving ‘Think Breaks’
This quick strategy is an easy but efficient way of activating students’ schemata in what they already know about the topic. Before starting to explain a concept/procedure, etc., first ask it as a rhetorical question to the class. (E.g.: How do organisms adapt to their environment?). Allow students to think for 20-30 seconds. If time allows, you can get the students to jot down their responses on paper, or they can share ideas with a peer. This activity only takes around 30 seconds - 2 minutes of your class time, and will help increase learners’ readiness to understand the content that you will be presenting.
4. Think-Pair-Share
Some students might be ready and confident enough to respond to a question right away. However, most students studying in a second language need some time to think, generate ideas, and quickly think about how they can best express themselves before they can share it with the whole class. A majority of the students who usually keep quiet in a class will volunteer to respond to questions if they are allowed some thinking time. For this reason, when you want to ask a conceptually challenging question, give the class 1 minute to think about the question on their own, 1 minute to make notes about their thoughts/comments, and 3 minutes to share it with a partner. Then ask your students to share their answers/responses.
If you cannot spare 5 minutes, even giving the students time to think individually will make a difference.