Do-it-yourself lecture makeovers

Years ago when I first started teaching my idea of an engaging lecture was to bring blank overhead transparencies to class, and write on them while talking. I even mastered a David-Lettermanesque delivery to my lectures that got me a few laughs here and there…and served to fuel my enthusiasm for teaching. What I didn’t realize then is that I wasn’t a good lecturer…and that what I was delivering was far from engaging.

Lecture is an instructional approach used by many faculty...sometimes out of habit, lack of alternative models, or necessity (e.g., constraints of the physical space, limited in-class time, high number of students). We know stuff about our discipline, so it requires little effort for us to talk about that stuff. Although we have to prepare for class, the preparation is relatively easy when our plan is to lecture...again, because we know our stuff. But, who is doing all of the fruitful cognitive processing on the topic -- the person preparing the lecture, or the person listening to the lecture? So, the questions of the hour are -- regardless of the efficiency of lecture, does lecture really achieve what we want to achieve? Are students engaged, and are they processing and retaining what we are sharing with them?

It turns out that the answer is no. So, does this mean we need to stop lecturing, or are there ways to improve the lecture approach?

Seems to me that the more we can have students do something with the content -- as opposed to listen to us talk about the content -- the better. Therefore, embedding students-do-something-now strategies throughout a lecture is a good way to enhance the students' experience and opportunity to process and reflect on the content. Acknowledging that this is not an easy task in a traditional lecture hall (equipped with fixed stadium seating!) with 100+ students, here are a few examples of students-do-something-now strategies that may work regardless of the instructional constraints:

• Think-pair-share. This strategy involves (1) asking the students a question about the content; (2) giving students an opportunity to consider the question, study their notes and/or text; (3) confer with their neighbor regarding their answer to the question. There are many variations on this strategy, especially in terms of how to handle the "share" aspect. For example, a pair can join up with another pair to discuss the question; using Clickers, pairs can log their response (this is a nice option for providing the whole audience with instant feedback, and for giving you as the lecturing information that can help provide direction for the next part of the lecture.); and pairs can log their response and their names on to index cards, pass them to the front, and the lecturer can randomly select a few responses to share with the whole group. [Note: This approach also provides a jumping off place for the rest of the lecture, and the index cards with students' names can be used for student participation grading.]
  


• Interview. Instead of lecturing, I have had students interview me about the topic. I start this strategy by telling students that during the interview they must collect all of the information they need on the topic to fulfill the requirements for writing an essay, completing a project, or preparing for an exam. Then students -- in teams with an elected interviewer, in rows with the person in the front deemed the official interviewer -- work together to determine what 3-5 questions their group (team or row) needs to ask in order to achieve the objective. This strategy encourages students to reflect on what they already know, what they can find out via their text or other resource, and what they absolutely need to ask their professor. It also helps them construct good questions, and prioritize needs. [Note: I have previously described a related strategy, called Stump the Professor.]
  


• Point-counterpoint. One of the best lecture-enhancement strategies I've used is to invite a colleague to participate in a point-counterpoint discussion on a particular topic (often controversial), with the students as our audience. This strategy allows students to listen to two (or more, as with a panel) practitioners/experts discuss and debate issues related to the topic. It helps students recognize that there are differing perspectives on the issues, and to see how colleagues grapple with those differing perspectives.
  


• Fishbowl. Another strategy that has worked well for me is to select different groups of students to participate with me in a small group discussion, with the rest of the students listening. I form these student groups ahead of time so I can keep track of who has participated, and make sure that I invite everyone in the audience to participate at least once.
  


• Value-added. I avoid lecturing on the same content the students have available to them via the textbook, article packet, or other set of resources. If I lecture on the same content they have available to them elsewhere they learn very quickly to either (a) not bother reading the text, or (b) not bother attending the lecture. As an expert in the domain, I have something unique to offer -- my take on the topic at hand, and my stories about how it plays out in practice. I want students to see the value in both the readings and what I have to share, so I avoid replication.
  


• Making it relevant, Part 1. As often as possible, instead of lecturing in the conventional way, I tell stories or describe cases that illustrate the points I want students to consider. This strategy helps students process the content in a more contextually meaningful way, helping students see how the content is relevant to the working world.
  


• Making it relevant, Part 2. It helps students engage in a lecture if they understand how the lecture content is related to (a) their professional preparation (i.e., what they will be doing on-the-job), and (b) how they are assessed in the course. I remind students at the beginning, middle, and end of a lecture how the content is related to both their professional work and/or the current assignment they are completing for the course. I then reinforce those relationships by incorporating them into my assessment of the assignment. For example, when I ask students to provide design documentation for an instructional product they have created, I require them to cite not only their readings but the lectures and class discussions as well. [Note: Related, I occasionally use the one-minute paper or quiz strategy, informing students at the start of the lecture that at the end of the class I will ask them to submit a one-minute paper or quiz. Knowing that this is coming encourages students to attend to the lecture and take useful notes.]
  


• Making it relevant, Part 3. My courses are very project-oriented. Therefore, a strategy I have found very helpful is to focus my lecture content on issues directly relevant to the students' ability to fulfill the project requirements.
  


• "Give me a break"...i.e., a pause in the action. This is a simple strategy to implement during a lecture. I allow students time throughout a lecture to summarize what I've shared, clean up their notes, ask for clarification from neighbors, and -- in general -- process and reflect on the content. After the pause in the action, I ask for questions -- often, after time to reflect on the lecture, a few students will find they have a gap in their notes and will ask me a follow-up question. I have found that giving students time to summarize the lecture thus far, in their own words, allows them the time and space to do the same sort of fruitful cognitive processing that I've done in preparing the lecture. If I don't give them time to process and reflect, then the lecture is for naught...and all I have accomplished is hearing myself talk.
  

These are just a few ideas for enhancing the lecture approach. I find it helpful to mix up the strategies so I am not doing the same thing repeatedly. These strategies have helped me deal with the instructional constraints of large classes held in traditional lecture hall settings. And, ultimately, I have found that I do not actually do that much lecturing, instead allowing students time and space to work with the content in more relevant and meaningful ways that help them stay engaged.

A few strategies for setting the right tone for online discussions

As a staple of online instructional interaction, online discussions are a big part of what takes place in the learning community – it is through these discussions, often, that much of the learning occurs. Therefore, learners’ comfort with participating in online discussions can have a big influence on what they achieve in the course. Comfort can be achieved through establishing trust with the instructor and with course colleagues, and through practice via non-threatening discussion experiences. To establish trust, consider the following strategies:

• Share a story, related to the content of the course if possible, that gives learners insight into your values, passions, interests, etc. Consider using a tool such as PowerPoint to enhance your story with photos, images, and audio clips (including your voice) – making it a digital story, in other words. See http://www.augustcouncil.com/~jdunlap/movie for an example of a digital story that helps my students feel more connected to me (and, therefore, more willing to share and participate in course activities, specifically discussion) while introducing an important topic my courses – values for teaching and learning. Notice that students never see the me, but hear my voice, see photos of my family, and listen to me describe a life-altering event that reflects my own values around teaching and learning. Now that I have shared, the students are more open to sharing.
  
  
• Ask students to post bios/introductions, but to encourage discourse around the shared information ask them to share of list of “facts” about themselves – some true and some not true. Have students engage in a “20 Questions” like discussion so they can determine which facts are in fact false. Besides the practice with using the discussion forum tool and responding appropriately to others’ messages, students start making connections that help them feel more comfortable. “We graduated from the same high school!” “You like to quilt too. What was your last project?” “I’ve been to Australia too. You have to go to Perth…” “What do you mean, ‘Don’t get off the boat in Ensenada’? There’s a story there.”
  
  
• For purposes of practicing online discussion (using the tools, protocols, etiquette, etc.), give learners opportunities to discuss non-threatening, low-judgmental topics. Consider the following activities:
  
  • Send students to a website that requires they do something and then ask them to share their experience with the group. For example,
    
    • Have students visit http://trevorvanmeter.com/flyguy/ and respond to the following questions in a discussion forum:
      - What happens to you while you are there?
      - What is your favorite part of the experience?
      - Why do you think I am asking you to do these sorts of activities?
      
    • Have them visit the Mr. Picassohead website -- http://www.mrpicassohead.com/ -- and create an artwork, then submit a link to the discussion forum. Once posted, encourage students to comment on each other’s artwork.
      
    
    
  • Post entertaining photos (not related to the course content) and ask students to share their captions. See below for an example of one of my favorite photos with some student captions.
    
    
    A few student captions:
    
    • Wait please! I do have good news...I just saved tons of money on my car insurance by switching to Geico.
      
    • Tim Burton "re-imagines" When Harry Met Sally.
      
    • I can take the giant brain, I can take the claws for hands, but why must you insist on wearing blue leather pants every time we go out?
      
    • MIT student enrolls at UCD. Instructors panic!
      
    • Listen, you're a nice guy and have a great personality, but my mother simply won't accept a son-in-law whose brain is on the outside.
      
    • During a break on the set, Ted belts out a rendition of "If I only had brain" on his air guitar. Meanwhile, Mary makes a run for it, hoping her career as an actress is still intact.
    
    

Wordle...just for phluff?

I've been using a fun (and quite popular) online tool called Wordle to produce images of word collections. For example, I recently created a Wordle image as a main page graphic for my online course. Here is a simple one that summarizes what I write about on this blog --



In this example, some words -- such as teaching -- are larger than others because they are included in the word list more frequently than others. To illustrate, if I were creating a Wordle image to represent the concept of baseball, my initial list of terms for this concept would include: baseball, bat, field, hat, player, field, umpire, glove, stadium, fans, hotdogs, popcorn, etc. This list would produce a Wordle image in which all of the words were the same size, indicating that they were of equal importance in understanding the concept of baseball. However, from my perspective, the word baseball is more important to understanding the concept then hotdog or popcorn. Therefore, I would modify the list as follows to make sure baseball was the most prominent word in the Wordle image: baseball, baseball bat, baseball field, baseball hat, baseball player, baseball field, and so on. With the revised list, the most frequently used word is baseball, so it would be the largest word in the Wordle image. In this way, I can easily illustrate word strength and importance within a list of words if desirable.

Wordle can be used for instructional purposes. For example, I have asked students to produce Wordle images that represent their understanding of a reading, topic, concept, or idea. Then, I ask small groups of students to debrief their images together to discuss what terms they selected and why, why some terms are larger than others (or what terms should be larger than others because they are more important), and so on. A variation is to limit the number of words students (working as individuals or in small groups) can use to describe a complex concept (e.g., constructivism, eLearning, diversity), and have them create a Wordle image that captures the essence of the concept with exactly 20 words. I have also used it to create word collections and asked students to determine how the words are connected, and what topic the collection of words describe. These types of activities encourage students to reflect on a topic or concept, and articulate their understanding based on that reflection.

Wordle can also be used during class introductions, specifically in online courses. Instead of asking students to share a bio, students can produce a Wordle image that summarizes who they are, likes and dislikes, hobbies, and so on. Again, it is a fun way to encourage reflection, articulation, and sharing.

Scavenger hunts for encouraging students to read and process the syllabus

In my post on Jazzing up the syllabus, I describe a few ways to make going through the syllabus during the first class meeting a relevant learning opportunity. What I neglected to share is a strategy I've been using in my online courses for several years -- the scavenger hunt. In my online courses I ask students to complete a scavenger hunt about the course, with most of the content for the hunt coming from the syllabus. Here is a list of scavenger hunt questions I used in a recent course:

1. In your own words, state the learning objectives for this course.
   
2. In your own words, describe the purpose and requirements of the team project.
   
3. On what days of the week are assignments and projects due?
   
4. What learning objectives are addressed by the individual project due on March 9th?
   
5. For what reason(s) would a student be granted an incomplete in the course?
   
6. What is the purpose of the Weekly Survey?
   
7. Who are the authors of the required texts?
   
8. What is meant by academic freedom?
   
9. What will you be able to add to your portfolio and/or resume in terms of knowledge, skills, and products as a result of successfully completing this course?
   
10. What is the best way to reach Joni outside of the course? How quickly will Joni respond to email? And, when is it best to contact Joni with questions, concerns, challenges, etc.?
    

Everyone in the course is required to complete the scavenger hunt, so it is an easy way for me to verify that everyone has at least looked at the syllabus.

Syllabus scavenger hunts also work well in on-campus courses. On the first night of class, you can have dyads or triads working on a hunt, and make it a contest for teams -- which teams get it done the quickest, which teams' responses are the most accurate, and which team accomplishes both. You can make the questions more complex, so that students have to dig deeply into the syllabus to answer the questions.

A syllabus scavenger hunt is an easy way to ensure that students read the syllabus during the first week (if online) or first night (if on-campus), and it allows me an opportunity to immediately clarify things based on the students' responses. And, it's fun!

Blogging supports other forms of sharing

As described in an earlier post on the educational purposes of blogging, I really do use this blog for reflecting on my own practice and as an ideation sketchbook of my ideas. It is a place to formulate stuff, share formative and summative versions of my thinking about teaching. It has also helped me with other forms of professional sharing. For example, I had a recent piece published in the International Society for Performance Improvement's (ISPI) monthly newsletter, PerformanceXpress. Before blogging, I hadn't considered alternative outlets for my ideas...my focus was strictly on contributing to refereed journals, with an occasional book chapter and non-refereed journal article thrown in for good measure. [Note: I am a faculty member in a system that highly values refereed journal articles, so my focus isn't unusual. But, the university also cares about professional reach...and let's face it, refereed articles are not always the best way to reach the professional community of practice.] Through the practice of blogging, I have come to value shorter, to-the-point how-tos, commentaries, and missives. A short, clearly presented how-to on a specific teaching strategy, for example, can have immediate influence on practice if widely made available to the folks who have an interest. A blog can serve that purpose, but so can an online newsletter such as PerformanceXpress.

Another reinforced "a-ha" for me is how the content of one's blog can find, with revision and enhancement, a life via some other forum. The content for my short commentary on the educational value of blogging published in the ISPI newsletter -- Contributing to the Thousands of Invisible Threads -- originated in this blog. And, another piece also published in the newsletter about the Pecha Kucha format for presentations originated in this blog. So, this blog is helping my writing, helping me build a habit of writing, helping me develop ideas that have an audience beyond the blog.

This overall positive experience has me now examining what I want to share, why I want to share it, and where I want to share it. And, this is helping me to be more open to all sorts of forums for my ideas. I think this is a fruitful examination for anyone, not only in terms of considering alternative delivery formats and publication avenues but in terms of audience. Consider how you can reach the audience that is interested in your topic, and be willing to share your ideas and work via forums outside of your discipline publications. I'm still working on this one...I almost exclusively publish in instructional design and technology forums. But, I am now excited about connecting with folks outside of my discipline who may be interested in my ideas too. [Note: Hear what Seth Godin and Tom Peters say about the power of blogging.]

As my five-year-old daughter said, "Sharing is hard, but it works out to be pretty good." My response, "Yep, sharing is cool. Let's do it some more."

Encouraging students to read before class...is it hopeless?

This is a topic on the minds of many of my faculty colleagues (and me!) -- how to get students to complete the assigned readings before class...or at all. My initial thoughts on this have always been that the readings have to be relevant:

1. To achieving the learning objectives
   
2. To completing the assignments and projects of the course
   
3. To student assessment
   
4. To the world outside of the course (whether in support of future study, of being a professional, of being a citizen)
   

Beyond this, however, there are important considerations that have to do with student readiness and time, and faculty expectations and habits.

Student readiness and time

Are students skilled at reading academic text? They may do a lot of reading (of materials like blogs, Facebook/MySpace pages, text messages, popular media text, and so on), but that sort of reading doesn't translate well to academic reading (see previous post on October 2, 2008). Also, students may not know the difference between skimming, scanning, directed reading, deep reading, and so on. Being clear about what we want students to do with their reading, and how to do it requires our attention. So, we need to scaffold students' reading via modeling and think-alouds, and providing them with examples of how we would mark and/or take notes on the text. In addition, we need to assist students in translating their approach to reading to an academic approach to reading. Spending some time on this sort of prereading instruction will help students learn how to process academic text.

Related, we also need to keep in mind that we have prior knowledge -- the schema -- to process new reading on topics we know about. Students may not. So, it takes them longer to process. An additional thing we can do is help students connect new reading to what they already know.


Do students have time to read the text? An interesting study by Ronald Carver several years ago (1985, How good are some of the world's best readers, Reading Research Quarterly, 20(4), 389-419) compared the word count and comprehension rate of strong student readers with people who read as a consistent part of their profession (such as faculty). There was a 150 word per minute difference between the strong student readers and the professional readers. The takeaway for me is the realization that some students do not read as fast as we do, which means that it may take them much more time to complete an assigned reading; something that takes us an hour to read, may take students 2-4 hours to read. If we are asking students to do other things between classes too, we need to take time-on-reading/task into consideration.

Also, students often have legitimate constraints on their time. Many of them work 15-20 hours a week, some have dependent care responsibilities, and many are concurrently taking several courses. The last thing they need are reading assignments that are not directly and clearly relevant to the work of the course (and beyond). I deal with this by making sure that the reading is critical to being able to complete assignments, and I tie the reading into those assignments in terms of assessment. And, I scale back my reading assignments so that students can deeply process, engage with, and apply a few readings, as opposed to assigning many readings and finding that they barely remember anything they've read and cannot apply the content of the readings to assignments.


Faculty expectations and habits

Are we clear about why we are asking students to read something? We need to remind (and keep reminding) students about the connections between the reading assignments and the course assignments and assessment (and the connection to the profession, etc.). Also, it doesn't hurt to share your enthusiasm for the reading -- why you think the reading is good, what some of the "a-ha" excerpts were for you, what you would like them to focus on, and so on. It sure would be nice to instill a love of reading in the process...

Do we lecture on (or provide students with a summary of) the same material that's in the text? When we do this, students quickly learn that they don't need to do the reading as long as they attend to the lecture and/or summary.

Do we engage students in activities that require them to apply the readings? Again, another thing students figure out quickly is that if we do not actively have them do something with the readings in class or for projects, that they don't need to read. And, it has to go beyond asking for volunteers to share their thoughts about the reading. Students need to know -- preferably in advance -- what you will be asking them to do with the readings during the next class meeting (for example, involving them in small group discussions using discussion protocols). This way they know how to prepare, what to prepare...and that everyone has to prepare (so, no hiding in the back of the room). [Note: I have several blog posts on facilitating discussions and using discussion protocols. I use discussion protocols all the time, and find them to be highly effective in establishing expectations for reading.]

Do we hold students accountable for completing the readings? This gets at assessment. If we are going to ask students to complete readings, how will we determine if they have been completed and what is the students' reward or payoff for completing the readings (beyond the "learning is reward enough" payoff)? I prefer more authentic approaches to this, so I require students to use the readings to defend their instructional design work; for example, students have to submit design documents in support of a lesson they have developed, and in those design documents they have to use the readings to support their decisions (and I often require them to triangulate their citations so they can demonstrate how more than one author/reading supports each decision). But, I also like assessment strategies that focus on specific readings, such as having students:

• Write one-minute papers summarizing the readings -- I then assess and award points for those summaries
  
• Assign inspiration points to each other for contributing valuable perspectives, ideas, counterarguments, summaries and so on to the discussion -- I track those points and apply them to the final grades [Note: For more on inspiration points, see the post in this blog.]
  

Getting students to read in preparation for class is difficult, but if you attend to issues related to reading preparation, reading assignments (in and out of class), and assessment, you can take appropriate action and help students be more successful.

Let's stop blaming technology

Every now and again, an article about the perceived failure of technology in schools to realize the anticipated, expected promise of improved student learning and achievement crosses into my radar. I typically dismiss these articles because they usually present flawed and incomplete arguments, and/or fail to recognize the complexity of the situation. One of these articles, by Mark Bauerlein, crossed my virtual desk today -- Online Literacy Is a Lesser Kind - Slow reading counterbalances Web skimming -- and I am compelled to reflect. Here are my thoughts regarding the assumptions that often underlie the "failure of technology in the classroom" argument:

(a) Access to technology equates to effective instructional use of technology and appropriate integration of technology. The one thing teachers and students can tell us is that putting computers with Internet access in the classroom doesn't lead to automatic academic enhancements. In fact, without attending to infrastructure -- faculty and student training, instructional approaches and strategies, incentives and rewards, assessment and accountability, and the like -- technology can serve as a distraction, and derail attention to student learning and achievement. When schools do attend to infrastructure, then technology can be integrated with positive results. Not only for student learning and achievement, but to enhance students' motivation to learning, prepare students to use technology in productive ways (to support inquiry, knowledge construction, communication and collaboration, and expression), connect students and faculty to the world outside of the classroom, and reenergize teachers' instructional practice. That's pretty powerful stuff...but, cannot occur by only providing access.

(b) All content on the Web should be read and processed in the same way as content in books, articles, and print in general. If that's the case, then the Internet becomes just a way to deliver print instead of something that is unique, giving us a different view on and way to work with content. Thinking about my own use of the Web, when I want to to quickly gather ideas and information, then I scan Web content (following the "F pattern" -- or the like -- described in Bauerlein's article). But, if my purpose for access Web content requires deeper processing, then I approach the Web (and other resources, regardless of format) differently. So, context and purpose is an important aspect of this discussion, not addressed in the article.

(c) The problem is technology. I am so tired of this argument. Have the machines finally taken over as predicted by the Terminator movies? This is insulting to educators because it assumes that we don't use tools based on our expertise. As if a tool is just plunked into our classrooms, and we blindly use it (or not) without any consideration of student learning and achievement. Instead, the issue has to do with how educators use technology, and our need to address technology and information literacy in our classrooms. We need to help students (and our colleagues sometimes) learn how to use technology and online resources appropriately. This is not a failure of technology, but a failure of attending to the appropriate integration and use of technology and a failure to support educators in this endeavor (via training, support services, learning communities, strategies, resources, and TIME).

Now is the time to get real about technology and information literacy. We need to prepare students for their professions and for a world that increasingly uses technology in all aspects of daily function. Let's focus our attention on improving student learning and achievement, using all of the tools we have available to us.

Thanks for listening.