Roosevelt University - Effective Lecturing

Effective Lecturing
Ideas for Effective College Teaching | Faculty and Staff

Lecture is the teaching method that college instructors use most often. It can accomplish important classroom objectives -- such as organizing the course material, increasing students' enthusiasm about a topic, or presenting information that would be otherwise inaccessible.

However, lecturing has some significant disadvantages as well. Often, lectures encourage student passivity. Many students do not pay attention during lengthier lectures. Also, lectures frequently do not develop students' abilities to integrate, analyze, or evaluate material.

The important point is that faculty should choose to lecture because it furthers their teaching objectives rather than viewing lecturing as the "default setting" for teaching. In fact, there are a variety of methods that you can use (including discussions or active learning); therefore, make sure that your choice makes sense in light of your goals for the particular class session.

Here is a list of helpful suggestions to enhance the effectiveness of your lectures.

Presentation skills are critical for lectures. Consider important issues such as the volume of your voice, your voice tone, your speaking speed, your movement around the room, and your eye contact. It is important that each of these is adequate (e.g., Are you speaking loud enough so that all of your students can hear you?) and varied during the class (e.g., Are you speaking in the same tone throughout the lecture? Even if everyone can hear, it is important to avoid a monotone.) Your enthusiasm during lectures will be contagious.
Have clear objectives for each lecture. You should be able to state exactly what you hope your students should be able to do at the end of each class. The content that you choose to present should therefore tie in with your goals for the course as a whole. Because it is often difficult to select exactly what material to present (so much content, so little time!), focus on material that your students will find meaningful, relevant, and helpful. Then, tell students what they need to know.
Tailor your lectures to students' levels of understanding. The first step in this process involves assessing students' knowledge at the beginning of the lecture. For instance, you could assign a brief problem or question for students to answer. This gives you some baseline information. Students will retain your lecture information to a much greater extent when you connect the material material at hand with their existing framework of knowledge.
Raise students' curiosity during your lectures. You can do this by posing provocative rhetorical questions, relating relevant stories or anecdotes, providing demonstrations, or developing related problems.
Carefully organize your lecture material. To promote students' understanding, the organization of your lectures should be explicit. Try to arrange the content in a logical sequence (e.g., chronologically, argument/counterargument, principle/examples, etc.) and summarize frequently. Examples, analogies, and metaphors are useful teaching tools.
Learning aids help. You have many at your disposal: the blackboard, overhead projector, Power Point, handouts, outlines, flow diagrams, or charts. Remember that more technology doesn't necessarily mean more learning. (Perhaps I've seen too many Power Point presentations with lots of power and not much of a point.)

Are you interested in learning more about effective lecturing? There are two wonderful essays at the following links: