Lectures – further reading

Haynes, A., Haynes, K. (2012). 53 interesting things to do in your lectures. Wicken: The Professional & Higher Partnership. 

I have followed our seminar on teaching formats by reading the above book. I have concentrated on finding the most relevant information for my practice and things that I could improve on for my next lecture. 

Objectives of the lecture: 

• to say what lecture will cover and what its structure is may still not indicate clearly what students should actually get out of the lecture.  
• specify what students should know, understand or be able to do after the lecture. Basic formula is ‘At the end of this lecture you should be able to…’ 
• Using active verbs can help – for example: define, list, name, write, recall, identify, illustrate, explain, demonstrate, use, perform, apply, analyse, compare, discuss, organise, conclude, evaluate, select. 

Buzz and problem centred groups: 

Asking the students to work in pairs or small groups and setting a task or discussion topic can help to engage them with the lecture.  

In the session I am planning now I could ask the students to find images and/or videos relevant to their research subject (costume or theatre design) – just after presenting our audio-visual online resources.

Flagging: 

It is better to be over-explicit when explaining the tasks than to assume that the students already know what and why we are doing what we are doing. It is crucial for the students to understand what they are supposed to get out of the lecture.  

Handouts: 

Some of the advantages of using handouts mentioned here have been new to me (or just something that I have not thought about before). Most important advantages of the handouts that ‘speak’ to me are: 

• less likely to disadvantage non-native speakers  
• have additional information on what we are saying in the lecture, as well as references to useful sources 
• help to remember.