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Well, the best way to effectively use engaged lectures is to talk to students about the effective aspects of lectures. Now, lectures are much more efficient than discovery learning in many constructivist approaches. That doesn’t mean they’re better, it means they’re more efficient. Although it’s fine and at times preferable to have students discover the answer, the problem is there’s often just not enough time.
Now, by deciding when to be efficient, you will be able to carve out time for your students to use more discovery-based strategies at specific times. For example, if you’re teaching an introductory psychology course, it’s often helpful to describe the foundational principles and differences between operant and classical conditioning. Now, those things are often messed up when students first read those approaches. So once you have then talked to them about these foundational approaches, so that they get them right, you then can have the students work in an active learning or constructivist environment.
Now, talking to students about the effectiveness of engaged lecture and the ways of which students are better facilitating their own learning process will increase the amount learned. See, the problem is if students don’t think they can learn from the lecture, they won’t. But if you talk to them about how the lecture can be effective, they will. So specifically know where in the lectures you’re working to draw them into experiences and engage them to thinking about the material. Now, if this is not done, the students are going to quickly tune you out. As I’ve mentioned, if they don’t think they’re learning from the lecture, they’re just not going to pay attention.
Now, students have had other instructors who have not been effective lecturers, which means they can tune out. So many of the students also have been in classes where people lecture all the time, so they might tune you out. So it may well be very important for you to see that the students understand that they can learn from the lecture. For a host of reasons, the students may not learn from your lectures unless you explain why they can learn from the lectures.
Now, one thing we know for certain about lecturing is if that learner doesn’t pay attention to the information being processed, or if the learner does not believe they can learn, she or he will not learn. It is for that reason that we strive to include students in the learning process as much as possible and explain to them how the process is working. And if you do that, your students can learn from the lecture.
The best way to effectively use engaged lectures is to talk to students about the effective aspects of lectures. Lectures are much more efficient than discovery learning and many constructivist approaches. Although it is fine, and at times preferable to have students ‘discover’ the answer, there is often just not enough time to do that. By deciding where to be efficient, you will be able to carve out time for students to use more discovery-based strategies at specific times. For example, in an introductory psychology course, it is often helpful to describe the foundational principles and differences between operant and classical conditioning that are missed upon first reading about those approaches. Once the foundational material is presented in a 10-to-12-minute lecture, students can be asked to spend time identifying and sharing examples.
Talking to the students about the effectiveness of the engaged lecture and ways in which students can better facilitate their own learning will increase the amount learned. Specifically note where in lectures you are working to draw them into the experience and engage them in thinking through the material. If this is not done, it is possible students will ‘tune you out’ as soon as you start lecturing. This is done for a variety of reasons. Students may have had other instructors who are not effective lecturers, or those who lecture all the time. It may well be that students do not see any responsibility on their part during the lecture. For a host of reasons, students may not learn from your lectures unless you explain to them the learning that is designed to take place.
One thing we know for sure about learning is that if the learner does not attend to the information being presented, or if the learner does not believe she or he will learn, then learning is decidedly low. It is for that reason that we strive to include students in the learning process and explain to them how that process is designed to work.
Discussions
At the beginning of the semester, what would you tell your students about mini lectures that you intend to deliver?
Please share your thoughts and questions in the comments section below.