It’s OK to lecture: from boredom to brilliance

Tansy JessopCPD Workshops

@solentlearning9 November 2016

Today’s session

1) Lectures: a fading or failed pedagogy2) The problem with lectures3) Why lectures still have currency4) Strategies to vivify lectures5) Life by Power Point: ideas and options

Which one species is most endangered?

a) The Black Rhinob) Leatherback turtlec) University lectured) Orangutane) Bengal Tigerf) African wild dog

Despite the increased emphasis in recent years on improving professors’ teaching skills, such training often

focuses on incorporating technology or flipping the classroom, rather than on how to give a traditional college lecture. It’s also in part why the lecture—a mainstay of any

introductory undergraduate course—is endangered.

(Gross-Loh 2016)

So are lectures dead?

For some, it appears so….

What’s the problem with lecturing?

(Mann & Robinson 2009)

2

39

29

30

Boredom in lectures

Bored most of the time

Bored half of the time

Bored some of the time

Meta-analysis 225 studies looking at the effectiveness of traditional lectures versus active

learning in undergraduate STEM courses. Lecturing increased failure rates by 55 percent;

active learning resulted in better grades and a 36 percent drop in class failure rates.

(Gross-Loh 2016)

How does it compare with other teaching formats?

(Mann and Robinson 2009, 250)

Higher boredom ratings

Lower boredom ratings

But is it the lecture itself that’s the problem—or the lecturer?

Trivium: Grammar, Logic, Rhetoric.

What has cool-headed science done to oratory?

Oratory, like writing, emphasises the ability to formulate coherent thoughts into compelling and well-crafted arguments. The decline of both in academic settings comes from their diminished stature and training opportunities.

(Gross-Loh 2016)

So, why do we persist with lectures in modern

universities? (top three)a) Financial efficiencyb) Conveniencec) Lectures have capacity to inspired) Persistence of traditione) Didactic view of teachingf) To convey large bodies of complex informationg) Lectures underline research and expertise of

academicsh) Less time-consuming than active learning

• Think of your favourite lecturer ever

• What made those lectures inspiring?

• Turn to your neighbour and tell them what inspired you.

• Add words which capture what about your favourite inspired you:www.menti.com 78 78 44

Moving from boredom to brilliance

Is good lecturing about charisma and performance?

Seven strategies to vivify lecturing

1) Start with why; reveal your genuine questions2) Connect with students prior learning and experience3) Break it up into a small number of parts, and break it

up into pairs and triads4) Make your teaching presence felt: teaching is relational5) Learning is a sensory experience. Tell stories, pictures,

metaphors, artefacts, poems, short media clips.6) Use lively, fresh, contemporary research material7) Use CATS

Start with why, start with questions (S1)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE

Connect with prior experience and knowledge (S2)

Student learning is deepest when the content or skills

being learned are personally meaningful

Break it up! (S3)

• 15-20 minutes of continuous activity before a learner’s attention starts to wane• You can build muscles• Surprising break ups

Build your relationship with students (S4)

• Not only about techniques and skills

• Not a technocratic business; it’s a people business

“Emotion has only recently gotten a foothold inside the academy, and we still don’t know whether to give it a seminar room, a lecture hall, or just a closet we can air out now and then (Behar, 1996).

Use story, artefact, poems, media clips (S5)

“Research promotes critical and creative thinking, the habits of mind that nurture innovation; creates a sense of intellectual excitement and adventure, and provides the satisfaction of real accomplishment”. (Ellis, 2006)

Use CATS (S7)

1. What is the most important thing I learnt from this lecture?

2. What still puzzles me?

Using power-point well

1) Few slides or many?2) It’s not an aide memoire3) It’s a visual medium (snipping tool)4) Transitions between slides5) Remember that students can’t read & listen at the

same time6) Let them read the words!7) Tell a story through the headings

References

Behar, R. (1996) The Vulnerable Observer: Anthropology that breaks your heart. Boston. Beacon Press.

Brew, A. 1999. Research and teaching: Changing relationships in a changing context, Studies in Higher Education, 24:3, 291-301.

Gross-Loh, C. 2016. Should Colleges Really eliminate the College Lecture? The Atlantic. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/07/eliminating-the-lecture/491135/

Harland, T. 2012. University Teaching: An Introductory Guide. Abingdon. Routledge.

James, A. and Brookfield, S. 2014. Engaging Imagination: Helping Students Become Creative and Reflective Thinkers. San Francisco. Jossey Bass.

Mann, S. & Robinson, A. 2009. Boredom in the lecture theatre: an investigation into the contributors, moderators and outcomes of boredom amongst university students, British Educational Research Journal, 35:2, 243-258