February 2006
Volume 19, Number 2
In Pursuit of the 'Perfect Lecture'
Though I have been lecturing in the college classroom for better than a quarter century, I leave each lecture thinking how I can improve my presentation the next time around. After all, perfection is more a Platonic ideal than a realized state. Yet, on the other hand, there is something to be said for the “relentless pursuit of perfection,” to borrow a phrase from an advertising copywriter. So let me offer some modest suggestions to guide the relentless pursuit of perfection, based upon both personal experience in the classroom and research on effective learning.
Many college instructors spend more time lecturing in the classroom than in any other professional activity. Yet few instructors have had formal training in the skills of lecturing, and few researchers have directed attention to studying skills and processes that make lecturing an effective form of instruction. Still, every Tuesday and Thursday or every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday when college is in session, legions of instructors organize their notes, march into their classrooms, stand in front of a class, and engage in a practice as old as the institution of college itself.
The traditional lecture form of instruction has taken its knocks in recent years. Critics contend that the traditional lecture encourages passive learning that is limited to absorbing information — mostly facts and figures — or regurgitating material recycled from the accompanying textbook. Other commonly heard complaints include the charge that the traditional lecture fails to encourage students to engage in personal reflection, critical analysis, or hypothesis testing. This article does not call for replacing lectures, but rather offers some modest proposals to help improve them.
Lecturers seem to “get it” from both ends. Students complain when a lecture sticks too closely to the textbook, and they complain even louder when it departs too far from the assigned readings. Effective lecturers expand upon textbook material rather than merely regurgitating it. I recall a professor who taught child psychology exactly the same way for more than 20 years, until one day a student excitedly entered the professor's office.
“Professor, professor,” the student shouted. “You'll never guess what I found in the library.” The professor looked up to see a familiar book that was ragged-edged from age. The student continued, “I found this in the back of the stacks. I can't believe it. It's word for word from your lectures. Someone stole your lecture notes and put them in a book!”
I do not know whether the professor ever corrected the student about who had stolen what from whom, but the point is that the effective instructor does not lecture from a book.
Effective Learning in the Classroom
The metaphor of the brain as a sponge that absorbs
information passively does not square with modern research
on the learning process. Though some forms of implicit
learning may occur without conscious effort, the kind of
explicit learning required in college courses depends upon
active engagement of processes of attention, encoding, and
elaboration of newly acquired information.
We can conceptualize effective learning in terms of four key steps I call the “Four Es:”
- Engaging Interest
- Encoding Information
- Elaborating Meaning
- Evaluating Progress
These four principles of effective learning apply to learning in many forms, including textbook learning, classroom learning, and distance learning. Let me offer some suggestions for applying these principles to the classroom.
Engaging interest. Experimental studies provide strong support for the importance of focused attention in the encoding process (e.g., Iidaka, Anderson, Kapur, Cabeza, & Craik, 2000). Divided attention impairs learning, possibly because it interferes with the deeper, elaborative processing needed for effective learning. Experimental findings support the common-sense belief that students are unlikely to encode and retain key points from lecture material if they are not paying full attention.
In a youth culture in which attention spans may be limited to MTV-length videos — or even shorter screen changes in video games — a lecturer who reads prepared notes for a 45 or 50 period will likely be lecturing to an ever-shrinking audience of attentive listeners. The flow of the lecture, not just the content, needs to be thought through in advance to both capture and hold student attention. To maintain attention, we can divide the lecture into briefer segments, with each lasting no longer than perhaps 15 minutes. As student attention spans tend to become shorter over the course of a lecture (Beard & Hartley, 1984), the length of the segments should follow suit, with longer segments at the outset followed by shorter segments as the lecture progresses. We should also change pace every few minutes, such as by moving from the desk to the podium, using overhead transparencies, and so on (Murray & Murray, 1992).
Encoding information. Attention may be a prerequisite for effective learning, but attention alone does not ensure that encoding will occur. Students must have the knowledge structures to enable them to incorporate and integrate new knowledge. They also must be able to identify material that is important to encode and retain. However, students may mistake the chaff for the wheat when they take notes in class and come away learning facts and figures but miss important concepts.
Signaling is a pedagogical device for identifying material that is important to learn (Nevid & Lampmann, 2003). Textbooks include a variety of signals, such as bolded key terms, topic headings, and extracted and highlighted concepts, also known as concept signaling, to help students focus attention on information they need to encode and retain. Evidence shows that cuing important lecture points in the classroom can increase retention of cued material (Scerbo, Warm, Dember, & Grasha 1992). Written cues are much more effective than spoken cues. Lecturers can help students encode important lecture points by using visual aids, such bullet points in PowerPoint slides, to highlight key content.
PowerPoint is not the only means of signaling key lecture points. The use of the chalkboard, whiteboard, or overhead transparencies to outline lecture topics serves dual functions as advance organizers and as signals for key concepts. Distributing copies of visual displays enables students to focus their attention on the meaning of the material rather than on note-taking. The use of visual aids can shift the student's responsibility from simple note-taking to deeper levels of processing.
Taking 5 minutes at the start of the lecture to preview topics to be covered can prime students to recognize important material in the lecture. Titsworth (2001) found that embedding verbal signals during the lecture — such as, “Now I will present a definition of ...” and “Now we will turn to consider the theories of ...” — improved student retention of lecture material. The use of a lecture guide can also help students focus on important content the lesson covers (Ogden, 2003).
Elaborating meaning. Deeper processing through elaborative rehearsal leads to more enduring memories. Elaborative rehearsal involves focusing on the meaning of the material rather than mere repetition or rote rehearsal. For example, we may be more successful in learning the principles of classical and operant conditioning when we relate these principles to examples from daily life.
Many students process information superficially. They may hear the instructor's words and copy down a few choice remarks, but do not become engaged in thinking or reflecting about the material in a way that would promote deeper processing.
To promote effective learning in the classroom, instructors need to engage students and help them become more active learners. Lectures need not be passive forms of instruction, but instead can incorporate interactive components that encourage students to take a more active role in the learning process. The use of interactive exercises, small group projects, demonstrations, and other active learning exercises help maintain students' focus as well as provide opportunities to strengthen and expand upon new learning.
The most effective lectures engage students by promoting active learning through student participation, use of rhetorical questions, small group activities, self-assessment exercises, and informal debates. The lecture format is a group experience, which means it has great potential for encouraging participation and interaction among group members (Pence, 1996-1997). The effective lecturer facilitates participatory activities to involve students more directly in the learning process. For example, lecturers can structure cooperative learning exercises in which pairs or groups of students work together on solving a problem.
Readers interested in active learning and interactive learning exercises may consult sources on problem-based learning (Willis, 2002), active learning and cooperative learning (Keyser, 2000), collaborative learning (Giordano & Yost Hammer, 2000), teaching tips (McKeachie, 2002), and active learning (Sutherland & Bonwell, 1996).
The process of elaborating meaning applies more broadly to presenting information in different formats so that learning does not become context-bound. New learning is a fragile commodity that needs to be strengthened and reinforced if it is to lead to enduring memories. In other words, lecturers should not assume that because concepts are clearly conveyed in class, they will be processed and imprinted in long-term memory.
As with textbook writing, lecturers need to think creatively in presenting information repeatedly through different channels, both to elaborate and to reinforce new learning. A combination of learning aids, including written materials like handouts, visual aids like PowerPoint or overhead transparencies, and interactive classroom exercises can broaden the learning environment beyond listening and note-taking.
Effective lecturers come prepared with a clear outline, well-organized notes and learning aids — such as videotapes, PowerPoint slides, CD-ROMs, and so on — but they do not give a speech or read from their materials.
Evaluating progress. Many instructors do not discover until exam time that students are not “getting” major points. Leaving 5 minutes at the end of the lecture to briefly review key points and present study questions helps students evaluate their progress. Instructors may also use interim quizzes to identify students who may be struggling at an early point in the semester.
Handouts. Handouts complement and reinforce oral learning that occurs from lecturing. The use of handouts also minimizes the need for rote note-taking. Lecturers can leave large margins and spaces in their handouts so that students are able to write additional notes or sidebars to these materials. Handouts can include related information, embedded examples, and study questions, all of which help students encode important points and elaborate the meaning of the material.
Speed and Pacing. A common complaint among students is that instructors go too fast (Forrester-Jones, 2003). Beginning instructors often find their rate of speech increasing in proportion to their anxiety level. Experienced instructors may find themselves racing the clock to cover all the intended lecture material. I find it helpful to prioritize information beforehand. I include information I feel I must cover in the first part of the lecture and hold more expendable material until the end. I often carry over to the next lecture the material I was not able to cover. We need to bear in mind that any learning that occurred earlier in the lecture is likely to be forgotten in a rush to cram as much information as possible into the end of the class.
Graph It! Graphs and diagrams are powerful and intuitively appealing ways of presenting scientific findings and illustrating relationships between variables. Evidence supports the learning benefits of visual displays. For example, a recent study showed that learning was enhanced when information about the human circulatory system was presented in diagram form as compared to presenting the same information in narrative form (Ainsworth & Loizou, 2003).
Conclusion
We should use psychology to teach psychology. We
can apply concepts and principles developed and honed in
research studies of learning and memory to become more
effective instructors and to assist our students to become
more effective learners.
References
- Ainsworth, S., & Loizou, A. Th. (2003). The effects of selfexplaining when learning with text or diagrams. Cognitive Science, 27, 669-681.
- Beard, R. M., & Hartley, J. (1984). Teaching and learning in higher education. (4th ed.). London: Paul Chapman.
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- Forrester-Jones, R. (2003). Students' perceptions of teaching: The research is alive and well. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 28, 59-69.
- Giordano, P. J., & Yost Hammer, E. (2000). In-class collaborative learning: Practical suggestions from the teaching trenches. Teaching of Psychology, 26, 42-44.
- Iidaka, T., Anderson, N. D., Kapur, S., Cabeza, R., & Craik, F. I. M. (2000). The effect of divided attention on encoding and retrieval in episodic memory revealed by positron emission tomography. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 12, 267- 280.
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- McKeachie, W. J. (2002). McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers. (11th ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
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- Nevid, J. S., & Lampmann, J. L. (2003). Effects on content acquisition of signaling key concepts in text material. Teaching of Psychology, 30, 227-229.
- Ogden, W. (2003). Reaching all the students: The feedback lecture. Journal of Instructional Psychology, 30, 22-27.
- Pence, H. E. (1996-1997). What is the role of lecture in high-tech education? Journal of Educational Technology Systems, 25, 91-96.
- Scerbo, M. W., Warm, J S., Dember, W. N., & Grasha, A. F. (1992). The role of time and cuing in a college lecture. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 17, 312-328.
- Sutherland, T. E., & Bonwell, C. C. (Eds.) (1996). Using active learning in college classes: A range of options for faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
- Titsworth, B. S. (2001). The effects of teacher immediacy, use of organizational lecture cues, and students' notetaking on cognitive learning. Communication Education, 50, 283-297.
- Willis, A. S. (2002). Problem-based learning in a general psychology course. The Journal of General Education, 51, 282-292.
