What It Takes To Be Highly Effective At A Lecture

Lectures are a powerful way of conveying information to a mass audience, but they are inefficient ways of providing students with the latest knowledge and skills. The traditional lecture format is convenient, allowing the subject-matter experts to explain what they know best, but it is not the best way to teach for some students. Most students are unsure of what they are supposed to get out of a lecture, and they fail to successfully absorb material. Lectures do not evaluate learning, provide diverse perspectives, differentiate instruction, or let students direct themselves.

Students used to lectures do not have the skills for self-directed learning, and are unable to self-direct. This fails them, since teaching students how to learn is the whole point of education in the first place. In fact, many students relax once they understand it is not the lessons that are challenging them, but following the wrong style of learning. When the time of the exams approaches, many students get anxious and begin studying all lessons simultaneously, leaving all their lecture notes lying around the desk.

It is really easy to start to daydream while you are in lectures and lose track of a crucial point. Starting the preparation for the lecture with no clear view can cause all kinds of problems, which will be discussed soon. If you are deliberate and clear in each stage of your planning process, you will end up with a successful lecture.

Write out outlines or notes that will follow the lecture, and have your overheads, charts, lecture notes, and other assistance ready in advance. Teach your students how to successfully take notes, so that they do not spend every lecture stressed out recording every word you say, and provide them with graphic organizers for taking notes. Consult with other students and compare notes from lectures, not as a replacement for attending lectures and taking notes yourself, but as a way of identifying things other students find important, interesting, or obscure.

The key to taking notes that simultaneously promote learning and are helpful to reference is identifying and recording the most important ideas, concepts, and facts in a lecture as they relate to the overall course. It is important to make good notes throughout lectures so you will have a reliable resource for studying for exams, as well as helping you to remain engaged throughout lectures. Lectures are more effective when students come to class prepared, actively participate in the classroom discussions, and take good notes.

By reading ahead of the lecture, one is able to make stronger connections between text and lecture, identify major ideas better in lectures, and have a baseline of the information presented in class. Reading material before class primes your short-term memory so the information you learn in the lecture is easier to recall, since a) it is related to something you already know, and b) repetition is often essential for effective learning. Reading helps you to better understand a lectures lecture on the topic, as well as helps you remember the key points more quickly when studying at home.

You may want to look over a chapter before going into a class lecture on it. Once you start timing your lectures, you might find that you need to go back and narrow down the subject.

If you are planning on including an interactive component in the lecture, prepare for this to potentially disrupt your time. If you overlook doing an addendum, it is possible your students will fail to grasp the concept, regardless of how engaging your lecture is.

Or, if you are teaching online, allow students a way to research an answer and add what they found to a discussion. Engaging your audience might include starting by explaining why the lecture content is important for students.

It is highly recommended that you provide a road map for the students of your lectures. Set learning goals for your lecture, outlining skills and knowledge the students need to have by the time you are done. Set a precedent early in a lecture, using proper grammar in writing and speech, taking a measured approach when discussing controversial topics, following all the schools rules regarding faculty behavior and student work, and generally acting as you would want your students to.

Teaching is more effective when students are motivated by the desire to learn, not grades or graduation requirements. Successful students have a solid plan of how they are going to study, and they will not be overwhelmed or bored by having a solid roadmap. Good instructors are able to tailor their instructional strategies to both students and the material, understanding that different students will learn differently.

Problem-solving exercises with smaller groups may only take a few minutes, but they enable students to be engaged in the material being covered. Within class sessions themselves, effective professors concentrate on covering the most crucial concepts while students are physiologically responsive, and routinely tie activities and assignments back to the curriculum objectives.

Because lectures are such a unique mode of learning, and so crucial a critical element of success, using effective strategies to maximise attention during lectures, as well as retention following them, is essential. Trying to absorb information and understand only through lectures is not the most efficient way to learn. Even if it is hard for you to memorize everything you are taught in lectures, the notes that you take in lectures can be crucial for your ability to engage in discussion about the material later on in your own group, or teach others about it.

Enhancing the quality of your lectures by presenting the information in different ways, like in a word-and-visual manner, may help students to more clearly understand connections. In addition to the visual ways you represent information, you may want to arrange the information in the lecture differently as well in order to increase students comprehension.

You should pay attention to the main points, arguments, and themes of a lecture. Students will be following your lectures at a variety of speeds--many will be still digesting the information while you are introducing an entirely new concept--so avoid going overboard, and create breaks that allow them to catch up, ask questions, fill in notes, and digest material. It is challenging to design active learning activities that involve students in the process of making sense together, grappling with new ideas, and practicing new skills.