[EAS] Lectures & Chinese Food
Peter J. Kindlmann
pjk at design.eng.yale.edu
Tue Apr 24 23:25:31 EDT 2007
Dear Colleagues -
Another item from Rick Reis's interesting TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR list
reminds us how little students typically retain from lectures. Much
of the time their mind isn't even on what you are saying.
I remember one nugget from a research project where some university's
highly reputed professor had a class enthralled with Asian history.
Or so it seemed. At a common signal, students were to write down
(anonymously) what they were actually thinking about at that moment.
Amidst Ghengis Khan's hordes thundering across the plains for
Mongolia came the signal. Only about a 1/3 of the class was actually
really paying close attention. Many were thinking about something
else entirely. Several, and this is the charming part that sticks
with me, were thinking about having Chinese food for dinner.
Sure, our engineering material is very different, but it doesn't even
rise to Cecil B. DeMille dimensions. I probably deluded myself for 40
years that my "impedance match" must surely be better. I'm not so
sure -- with age one easily just get better at kidding oneself. Our
classes are much smaller than History classes. If you make them very
interactive, constantly asking questions about what you are doing,
seeing if students can take the next step, you can probably keep
sampling and stirring their mindfulness frequently enough to keep
them involved, like that Chinese conjurer keeping many spinning
plates going. If not, you're "Chinese food."
All best, --PJK
--------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Apr 2007 12:52:53 -0700
From: Rick Reis <reis at stanford.edu>
Subject: TP Msg. #790 How to Create Memorable Lectures
To: tomorrows-professor at lists.stanford.edu
Message-ID: <p06230900c24d79042fa0@[171.64.49.37]>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
Reminder: You can comment on this or any past posting by going to:
http://amps-tools.mit.edu/tomprofblog/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In general, students capture only 20-40 percent of a lecture's main
ideas in their notes (Kiewra, 2002, p. 72). Without reviewing the
lecture material, students remember less than 10 percent after three
weeks (Bligh, 2000, p. 40). All instructors hope that their lectures
will be the exception, but these numbers present a clear challenge:
How can we guarantee that students learn and remember what we teach?
How do we create and deliver lectures that stay with students long
past the last few minutes of class? In this newsletter we take up
this challenge, by considering how students attend to, make sense of,
and absorb new information."
----------------------------------
* * * * *
TOMORROW'S PROFESSOR(SM) MAILING LIST
desk-top faculty development one hundred times a year
Over 25,000 subscribers
Over 775 postings
Over 650 academic institutions
Over 100 countries
Sponsored by
THE STANFORD UNIVERSITY CENTER FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING
http://ctl.stanford.edu
An archive of all past postings (with a two week
delay) can be found at:
http://ctl.stanford.edu/Tomprof/postings.html
* * * * *
Folks:
The posting below looks at, well actually the title speaks for
itself. It is from the newsletter, Speaking of Teaching, produced
by the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), Stanford University -,
http://ctl.stanford.edu/Newsletter/ Winter 2005, Vol. 14, No.1.
Speaking of Teaching is compiled and edited by CTL Associate Director
Mariatte Denman at [mdenman@ stanford.edu.] Reprinted with permission.
Regards,
Rick Reis
reis at stanford.edu
UP NEXT: Birthright
Tomorrow's Teaching and Learning
-------------------------------- 2,958 words
---------------------------------
How to Create Memorable Lectures
In general, students capture only 20-40 percent of a lecture's main
ideas in their notes (Kiewra, 2002, p. 72). Without reviewing the
lecture material, students remember less than 10 percent after three
weeks (Bligh, 2000, p. 40). All instructors hope that their lectures
will be the exception, but these numbers present a clear challenge:
How can we guarantee that students learn and remember what we teach?
How do we create and deliver lectures that stay with students long
past the last few minutes of class? In this newsletter we take up
this challenge, by considering how students attend to, make sense of,
and absorb new information.
The Learning Process: From Attention to Comprehension to Integration
Cognitive theories describe three phases of the learning process (see
Schneider for an extensive discussion of theories). In the first
phase, we decide what to attend to. We cannot notice everything that
is going on in our environment, so we orient our attention
selectively. In the classroom, we hope that students are attending to
us, but many things compete for their attention. If we want students
to learn, we need to capture their attention.
In the second step of learning, we organize what we observe into a
coherent mental pattern or structure. In the classroom, students are
constantly interpreting what you say, what they read on the
blackboard, and what they see on slides. Students must decide how to
organize this information in their own minds (and notes). The more
you can provide students with a framework for interpreting lecture
material, the easier it is for them to understand new ideas.
These first two phases of learning create a short-term memory for new
information. To fully "own" new information in long-term memory, we
need to rehearse the new information and connect it to existing
frameworks of knowledge. This gives new information meaning beyond
the particular learning occasion, and makes it easier to retrieve.
This final phase of learning begins in the classroom, with review and
application, and continues out of the classroom through well-crafted
assignments.
How can you use this information in your lecture? James R. Davis
describes a simple approach to maximizing the first two stages of
learning: "Get the students' attention?tell the students what to pay
attention to... and don't overload the system" (p. 141). These three
strategies address the initial learning environment- the
classroom-and can help a lecturer communicate material effectively.
To these basic strategies, we add one more strategy that takes into
account the final stage of learning: Give students the opportunity to
review and apply lecture material, both in class and between classes.
This strategy guarantees that students will fully integrate the
material and make the knowledge their own-and that is what makes a
lecture truly memorable.
Get Students' Attention
Every lecturer hopes that the pure beauty and intrigue of ideas and
information will captivate students. Before students engage with
ideas, however, they must first be engaged by the instructor.
Therefore, like any public speaker, the lecturer's first task is to
capture the audience's attention. A lecturer must connect with
students and draw them into the lecture.
This rapport can be accomplished in a variety of ways, from
attention-grabbing gimmicks to highly thoughtful approaches. Most
instructors are wary of gimmicks; a common concern is that any
attempt to appeal to students' interests will lower the intellectual
quality of a lecture. However, engaging students needn't be at the
expense of high academic standards. As a lecturer, you don't need to
be a performer or an entertainer; you simply need to keep your
audience in mind, and find the most direct way to interest students
in your material.
One of the most basic and direct ways to attract and keep students'
interest is instructor expressiveness-the use of vocal variation,
facial expression, movement, and gesture. This tactic can be applied
to any lecture content, from Shakespeare to statistics. Students are
more likely to pay attention to instructors who exhibit expressive
behaviors, because expressive instructors are more interesting to
attend to and easier to understand. For this reason, expressiveness
enhances communication and facilitates student comprehension.
Students also tend to interpret an instructor's expressiveness as
enthusiasm for the subject, and enthusiasm in the classroom is
contagious. Expressive behaviors intrigue students, and encourage
them to actively consider the lecture material. For these reasons,
expressive behaviors lead to higher levels of student achievement and
satisfaction (R. P. Perry, 1985, quoted in Murray, p. 192).
The famous "Dr. Fox" experiments, first conducted by Ware and
Williams in the mid-seventies, illustrate the effects of instructor
expressiveness (see Murray, 1997). The experiments used six
videotaped lectures, all given by a professional actor assuming the
persona of "Dr. Fox." The topic of each lecture was biochemistry, but
the amount of information in each lecture varied (low, medium, or
high). In addition, lectures were presented with either a low or high
level of "seductiveness." "High seductiveness" was defined in terms
of expressive behavior: the use of movement, gesture, vocal emphasis,
humor, and charisma. "Low seductiveness" was characterized by a flat,
matter-of-fact style.
Students who watched the highly expressive lectures performed better
on a multiple-choice recall test than students who watched the less
expressive lectures. This suggests that expressiveness enhances
students' memory for the lecture content. Students who watched the
highly expressive lectures also gave higher ratings to the
instructor, independent of the level of information provided in the
lectures. The authors coined this last finding the "Dr. Fox Effect."
Students may give high ratings to teachers who convey almost no
content, but present their lectures enthusiastically. Lectures can be
enjoyable but still fail to meet important teaching goals.
However, as Murray argues, there is no reason to believe that
expressive behaviors "are in any way incompatible with more
traditional criteria of effective teaching, such as content coverage
and high academic standards" (p. 196). To avoid the Dr. Fox Effect,
keep in mind that expressiveness is more about communication than
entertainment. The key teaching goals of each lecture are still to
increase students' knowledge and skills, not to entertain students.
Expressiveness is simply a tool for engaging students with the
material, not an end to itself. A good litmus test for whether
expressiveness is effective, rather than merely entertaining, is
whether it invites students to be active, rather than passive,
learners. It is important to ask yourself: Once you have students'
attention, what are you doing with it?
Expressiveness can be learned, through training and practice. The
Center for Teaching and Learning provides a number of resources for
instructors looking to develop expressive skills (including class
videotaping and oral communication training). Expressiveness can also
be enhanced by the instructor's own engagement with the material.
Even though the material is familiar to you, you can rediscover its
importance and appeal each time you share it with new students.
When we think back to those teachers who captivated our attention
during a lecture, they undoubtedly used different strategies suited
to their individual temperaments, styles, and disciplines. Some may
have been more typically charismatic, and others less showy but
deeply passionate about ideas. Some may have owned the lecture hall
physically, acting out their lectures, while others may have kept us
riveted with their ability to tell a good story. What they probably
all shared, however, was presence. Not stage presence, but presence
in the sense of being truly present: physically, emotionally, and
intellectually. The expressiveness that follows from full presence is
a natural attention-grabber-no gimmicks needed.
Direct Students' Attention
But even when students pay attention, they may fail to attend to the
most important material in a lecture. Think of how much new content
you share with students in just one lecture. Students need to absorb,
record, and understand the steady flow of auditory and visual
information. To do so, students must listen, view, think, and write,
all at once. The juggling of these activities might explain why
students' notes capture only 20-40 percent of a lecture's content.
Because the content is new to students, it can be difficult for them
to identify which ideas are critical and which are peripheral. How
can we help students attend to the most important information, so
that they understand and remember the key points of each lecture?
The solution is to provide students with a framework for each
lecture, so that they can direct their attention to the most
important information. One way to do this is to prepare a study guide
for your course that describes each lecture's objectives, key
concepts, and questions to consider (Schneider, p. 57). A handout
with the lecture's major points will prepare students to listen and
look for the central elements of the lecture. Skeletal lecture
handouts, with room for students' notes, can also help students
organize what they hear and see, and may be more effective than
providing students with your full lecture notes (Kiewra, 2002, p.
72).As you prepare your lecture outlines, aim for three to five main
points in each lecture, with clear links between each lecture topic
and your main points.
You can also ask students to answer conceptual questions as they take
notes during lecture. Each part of a lecture can be preceded by a
high-level question that the upcoming information can answer. This
encourages students to interpret and organize lecture content
according to an important and useful conceptual framework. In one
study, students who took notes trying to answer conceptual questions
performed better on a recall test than students who took traditional
notes that simply recorded information (Rickards & McCormick, 1988).
During lecture, be as explicit as possible about what students should
focus on. Clearly introduce key concepts and definitions. Identify
important themes as a way for students to sort through the content of
the lecture. Use verbal and visual cues to highlight major points,
categories, and steps of an argument. You can also direct students'
attention to the most important points by asking them to review or
explain those points during class. All of these strategies will help
create a framework for students, so that they can quickly and
accurately identify and understand the core ideas in your lecture.
Don't Overload the System
Once we have students' attention, we need to consider how quickly
students can process information. Short-term memory requires time to
process the sensory input we receive; students are not sponges and
cannot immediately "absorb" new information. Give students short
breaks throughout lecture to review their notes and ask questions. A
short break that includes students' questions can also give the
lecturer an opportunity to assess student understanding and adjust
the remaining part of the lecture if needed.
You can also include a more formal activity or assignment after every
15-20 minutes of presentation. For example, ask students to summarize
or paraphrase the last few important points, either in their notes or
with the person sitting nearest them. You can then review the points
and move on to the next phase in the lecture. Giving students and
yourself a break has another advantage. The audience's attention in a
lecture drops dramatically after ten minutes of listening (Bligh,
2000, p. 53). Students can remember most of the first ten minutes,
but very little from the middle part of the lecture. A short break
will revitalize the audience's attention, and students will be much
more likely to remember information from throughout the lecture.
A final consideration involves how lecturers present information.
Lecturers are often encouraged to use a wide range of presentation
materials, including audio, video, and written materials. While this
can attract students' attention, it can also overload students'
attention. Cognitive overload occurs when different forms of
processing interfere with each other (Mayer & Moreno, 2003, p. 45). A
common example is when students are presented with an illustration
that also includes a written explanation. Students may be unable to
process the information quickly, because looking at the illustration
and reading the text both place demands on the same sensory channel
(vision). Mayer found that replacing the written explanation with an
auditory narrative, which uses another sensory channel, is more
effective. Another common way to overload attention is to give
students two conflicting things to attend to at the same time (say, a
transparency on the overhead and a verbal narrative th!
at does not directly relate to the overhead). Students must figure
out which sensory channel provides the essential information, and
they may not always guess correctly. You can avoid cognitive overload
by maintaining a reasonable pace in your presentation and by
carefully coordinating your verbal instruction with any other media.
Give Students Opportunities to Review and Apply
Information becomes solidified in long-term memory when we have
opportunities to retrieve, review, and reflect on that information.
As an instructor, you have two main opportunities to make sure this
happens: 1) Give students time, during lecture, to review and apply
ideas. 2) Give students assignments that encourage them to review
their lecture notes and use the lecture content.
Previously, we described how short breaks during a lecture can give
students the opportunity to make sure they have correctly identified
and recorded important information. To go beyond this simple
fact-checking, give students time in lecture to solve a problem or
discuss an idea. You can post the problem or discussion question on a
slide at the beginning of the lecture, so that students attend to the
lecture with the anticipation of applying the information. You can
have students tackle the problem or issue in pairs at the end of the
lecture, or work alone and then vote on a solution or position. You
can also create a think-tank situation by inviting volunteers to talk
through their thought processes as they try to solve the problem or
respond to a question. The full class can then discuss both the
process and outcome of the thought experiment.
Of course, your students' learning process does not end in the
lecture hall. You provide a strong foundation for learning during
class, but students typically are overwhelmed by other demands on
their time and thoughts. Students rush from one class to the next,
and spend time in extracurricular activities, athletics, jobs, and
socializing. By the end of the day, any information that is not
reviewed may not be accurately remembered.
We can increase students' learning by offering them the opportunity
to review each lecture in a meaningful and timely way. It is not
enough to hope that students will review their notes; create
assignments that encourage or require it. For example, ask students
to create a matrix, flow chart, table, or concept map based on the
information presented in lecture (Titsworth & Kiewra, 2004, p. 450).
Give students a problem that can only be solved using lecture
material. Have students prepare a debate, a student panel, or a
position paper on a subject related to lecture content (Frederick,
2002, p. 60). If an online discussion forum is part of the course,
ask students to respond to questions related to the most recent
lecture. By reviewing, interpreting, and applying lecture material,
students are more likely to build lasting memories and develop
higher-level thinking skills.
Students are also more likely to remember information that relates to
ideas or experiences they are already familiar with. You can
capitalize on this phenomenon by using examples from student life,
current events, or popular culture. You can also ask students to
generate their own examples from personal experience in class or as a
written assignment. Whenever possible, tell students how new
information relates to previous lectures in your course. Show
students how specific skills can be applied to real-world problems.
Create class activities or assignments that ask students to fit new
information into the overall themes of the course. For example, have
students compare two ideas, synthesize competing perspectives, or
discuss the evolution of one theory to another. All of these
techniques will make it more likely that students will remember the
information from lecture, because students will integrate the
material into already existing knowledge structures and experiences.
Teaching Strategies for Memorable Lectures
We have reviewed several teaching strategies that take into
consideration how students learn new information in a lecture
setting. We encourage you to apply these strategies to your own
teaching, and find out what works best for your lecture content and
personal teaching style. We also love to hear about innovative and
effective lecturing strategies on campus. Please share your success
stories if you have a found a particularly helpful way to keep
student's attention, increase student understanding, or improve
student performance. You can contact Mariatte Denman at mdenman@
stanford.edu.
Quick and Easy Ideas for Better Lectures
Provide students with a framework for each lecture
o Aim for three to five main points in each lecture.
o Begin the lecture with a high-level question that the upcoming
information can answer.
o Prepare a handout of the lecture's main points.
o During lecture, be explicit about what students should focus on.
Don't overload students
o Give students short breaks throughout lecture to review their notes
and ask questions.
o Include a formal activity or assignment after every 15-20 minutes
of presentation.
o Don't use too many different types of presentation materials at once.
o Don't give students two conflicting things to attend to at the same time.
Students are also more likely to remember information that relates to
ideas or experiences they are already familiar with.
o Use examples from student life, current events, or popular culture.
o Ask students to generate their own examples from personal experience.
o Tell students how new information relates to previous lectures in
your course.
o Show students how specific skills can be applied to real-world problems.
o Create activities and assignments that ask students to fit new
information into the overall themes of the course.
Bibliography
Bligh, Donald A. (2000). What's the use of lectures? San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass. Davis, James R. (1993). Better Teaching, More Learning:
Strategies for Success in Postsecondary Settings. Phoeniz, AZ: Oryx
Press.
Frederick, Peter J. (2002). "Engaging students actively in large
lecture settings." In Christine A. Stanley and M. Erin Porter.
Engaging Large Lecture Classes. Strategies and Techniques for College
Faculty (pp. 58-66). Bolton,Massachusetts: Anker Publishing Company,
Inc.
Kiewra, Kenneth A. (2002). "How classroom teachers can help students
learn and teach them how to learn." Theory into Practice, 41 (2),
71-80.
Mayer, Richard E., and Roxana Moreno. (2003). "Nine ways to reduce
cognitive load in multimedia learning." Educational Psychologist,
38(1), 43-52.
Murray, Harry G. (1997). "Effective teaching behavior in the college
classroom." In Raymond P. Perry and John C. Smart. Effective Teaching
in Higher Education: Research and Practice (pp. 171-204). New York:
Agathon Press.
Rickards, J.P., and C.B. McCormick. (1988). "Effects of interspersed
conceptual pre-questions on note-taking in listening comprehension."
Journal of Educational Psychology, 80, 592-594.
Schneider Fuhrmann, Barbara. (1983). A Practical Handbook for College
Teachers. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. This book shows how to
apply the cognitive learning process theories to the classroom with
many well-thought-out examples.
Titsworth, B. Scott, and Kenneth A. Kiewra. (2004). "Spoken
organizational lecture cues and student note-taking as facilitators
of student learning." Contemporary Educational Psychology, 29,
447-461.
* * * * * * *
NOTE: Anyone can SUBSCRIBE to the Tomorrows-Professor Mailing List by going to:
https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/tomorrows-professor
--
--
More information about the EAS-INFO
mailing list