In the book, Instructional Moves for Powerful Teaching in Higher Education, there is a chapter on the advantages of interactive lectures. The writers note, “a traditional lecture may feel like an effective, efficient means of communicating information, but when instructors use class time to only profess what they know without interruption, this deprives students of opportunities to think critically about that information and meaningfully apply it”.
Interactive lecturing is defined by Elizabeth Barkley and Claire Major in their book of the same name as “the process of combining engaging presentations with carefully selected active learning methods to achieve intended learning goals.”
The chapter focuses on ways to dedicate class time to repeated practice with skills. For example
Providing students with a “Preview of Class” slide, which offers students a snapshot of what to expect during course. (This is an advance organizer)
A reflective question that allows students to think about the items mentioned in the preview slide and time to write down what they know about the topic based on their own experiences (Activating prior knowledge).
The instructor allows a few students to share their reflections, and where possible, makes connections between their reflections and the required reading. As the lecture continues (over 3 hours) she continues to highlight connections. “Over time, students’ comments become increasingly stitched into the lesson’s tapestry”.
Other considerations shared in the chapter are:
Keep lectures brief. Resist the urge to lecture expansively. Few students can sustain interest and attention during them. Opting for shorter lectures—or brief bursts of lecture throughout lessons—can maintain student engagement and help students better access your expertise. You might also consider the benefits of an “unpolished lecture” for the lesson or your discipline.
Guide students into lectures. Give students time to arrive at a place of focus. Activate students’ prior knowledge. Center their experiences. Invite students to position themselves within a lecture’s key questions, problems, and concepts. Steps like these can provide helpful scaffolding before a lecture, allowing students to better access new information.
Offer students multiple ways to engage…from quiet reflection and small group discussion to a metacognitive exercise. Consider interspersing lectures with a similar level of variety to keep students on their toes and welcome all types of learners into lessons.
Exercise transparency with students. Demystify your field—and your teaching practice—by exposing your thought processes and rationales to students. Use lectures to model how experts think through problems in their disciplines. In addition, making clear why a particular assignment holds value for one’s intellectual development can improve student motivation.
Try metacognition. Successful students self-regulate and are highly attuned to their thought processes. This helps them to focus during class and persist through challenging content and tasks. Kimberly Tanner recommends explicitly teaching students metacognitive strategies like keeping reflective journals or having students track confusion in their thinking. You might also try modeling metacognitive processes yourself during your lectures.
Tell stories that stick. The stories we tell our students can mean the difference in their understanding and retaining a given concept. Humor, when deployed appropriately, can have the same effect Make your stories conversational but concise, as too many details may distract from key points and keep students from seeing their conceptual relevance.
The book is one of many resources connected to the Instructional Moves (IM) website based at Harvard University’s School of Education. The goal of IM is to help you incorporate and refine high-leverage teaching practices tailored to the higher education context. Other features include:
A searchable and sortable library of “raw clips” that faculty developers and others leading professional learning can use as text for rich conversations about effective teaching practices.
A new module on Educating for Equity and Inclusion, featuring four pathways which instructors can utilize individually or as part of a learning community.
Three new professionally-edited “IM Live” videos, each of which showcases a demonstration of teaching followed by a facilitated debrief with the featured faculty member.
An updated and expanded facilitator’s guide detailing ways to leverage site content, including all three of the new types of resources described above.
