When faced with a large amount of material to get through a teacher might think that the lecture is the best way to cover the material. To paraphrase Angie Miller, our Teacher Education Department Chair, a teacher’s job is not to cover the material but to uncover the material. A great lecture can be an effective way to transmit information in a way that is memorable and even entertaining but it is a lot more than just presenting information. I recently joined the anthropology class of Jason Shepard who used several techniques to make his lecture engaging.
The first rule of a good lecture is to have a hook that will grab your student’s attention from the start to make them want to learn more. On the day I went to Jason’s class, he was introducing linguistic anthropology by illustrating the concept of written symbols for language. He started with the ‘o’ sound as an example which seems simple and straight forward enough until he wrote the words: no, throw, sew, toe, and though. Jason was arousing his student’s interest by using incongruous material to grab the student’s attention. Students can’t learn if you don’t have their attention.
The second rule of a good lecture is to be animated. Jason was excited about the topic. He talked in an animated manner, used big gestures, and dramatic facial expressions. He moved around the room deliberately, making eye contact with his students. He told fun, interesting, and dramatic stories to illustrate major points and to help maintain attention. Of all the visual aids used in class, an enthusiastic, passionate teacher is the best visual aid.
The third rule of a great lecture is to make it student-centered and interactive. A well-crafted lecture should not be a passive experience for the students. Jason walked the students through using the scientific method in the social sciences as it related to sociolinguistics. He wanted them to understand the difference between data obtained through observation and theories to explain those observations. For example, one sociolinguistic finding in English-speaking cultures is that women ask more questions than men and men make more declarative statements than women. Jason emphasized that this was observational data. He asked the class to generate some theories to explain these observations. One student proposed that women are conditioned to be more passive and deferential due to traditional roles of men and women. Jason explained that theories related to patriarchy were some of the first proposed by the researchers. Once students suggested some theories, he questioned them on how those theories might be tested. One student suggested comparing communication patterns between patriarchal and matriarchal societies. Jason confirmed that researchers had indeed done that and discovered that women in both types of societies asked more questions. They decided the patriarchy theory did not seem to provide the best explanation. After reminding the class that there were male and female outliers, the students suggested that they could look for similarities between the women who asked fewer questions than average and the men who asked more than average. He then told them that researchers discovered that most men who asked as many questions as women on average also reported taking care of younger children and/or the elderly in their childhood and adolescence. This process stimulated students to practice problem-solving from the perspective of a professional in the field and made the lecture a more active experience. This week I encourage you to apply these three rules for a great lecture to “uncover” your course material with your students. I have also attached an article on “How to create memorable lectures” from Stanford University to provide more ideas.
Bad joke of the week
Psychology humor: Freud put the ‘anal’ into psychoanalysis.
Last thought
“A load of books does not equal one good teacher” Chinese proverb.