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Interactive Lecture

Erin Trado

Description

Research has suggested that students must do more than just listen to an instructor during a lecture. They must read, write, discuss, or be engaged in problem solving that is relevant to the course content. (Bonwell and Eison, 1991) In order for lectures to be an active process the students must do things and think about the information that the instructor wants to get across during the lecture. Ruhl, Hughes, and Schloss (1987), found that if a sixty minute lecture were periodically stopped (about three times per class, evenly spaced out) and the students were allowed to compare notes for a couple of minutes, the students' learning was significantly increased. Bonwell challenges university and college professors to present “mini-lectures” that are broken up by actives that are focused to achieve specific goals. (1997) There are different activities that can break up a lecture to make it interactive. Bonwell suggests having students raise their hands to indicate an answer that they choose. If the instructor would like to elaborate on the right answer they can have a few students who choose the right answer explain why they chose that answer and why it is correct. (1997) Think-pair-share is a second type of ‘break’ from lecture which is implemented through breaking the class into small groups or partners to discuss the answer to a particular question. At the end of the discussion period, each group shares their conclusions and they can answer. This stimulates class discussion, because after they have reached a conclusion with their small group or partner, they feel compelled to share their ideas. (Bonwell, 1997) Also, instructors can ask the students to take a few minutes to summarize the material that was presented in the mini-lecture. This shows the instructor if the students understood the main concepts or if they are having more trouble. (Bonwell, 1997) Also, it helps the students to put things in their own words and to actively start learning the material, instead of passively absorbing it. Yet another strategy is quick writes. If an instructor uses quick writes they ask the students to answer the following two questions in the last five minutes of class. 1. What did you learn in class today? 2. What questions or concerns do you have? The first question helps students to discover gaps in their knowledge that are evident when answering the second question. Students are then to form small groups to share their responses and select the best one or two questions to pose to the entire class. Or they can submit their answers without discussing them with a group. (www.wcer.wisc.edu)

All of these types of interactive lecture activities are most effective when they are used to teach a subject matter that is hierarchical in nature, which means that the concepts build on each other, starting with the simplest building to more complicated subject matter. (Pratt, 2005, p.65)

Major Concepts

Adults are able to listen to lectures and regurgitate back the information that the instructor has provided. Instructors are aware of this, thus they need to make sure that the learners are able to explore the content at a level that is deeper than superficial. It is possible for the questions, group sharing, and quick writes to spark information that leads to a deeper understanding of the content and the ability of the students to begin forming a relationship with the content itself.

Relationship to Teaching Perspective

Lecturing itself is typically seen as coming from the Transmission Perspective. This is because of the emphasis on content credibility, which is the relationship that the teacher has with the content.

Interactive lecturing can also bee seen from the Transmission Perspective, because the purpose of teaching from this perspective is “to move knowledge or skills from a content expert (teacher or text) to the learner.” (Pratt, 2005, p.65) It is important that teachers be an “expert” in what they teach “Pratt, 2005, p.40-41). The Transmission Perspective is primarily “teacher centered” and it places emphasis on “what the teacher does in the process of teaching” and “how well the content has been planned, organized, represented, and transmitted.” (Pratt, 2005, p.41) When the teacher employs interactive lecturing as a strategy it can still be done from the transmission perspective, because the teacher and their content credibility are still of up most importance. Now that the teachers are interacting with the students and the students with the teacher during the lecture, it allows the teacher to know immediately if students have difficulties with or misunderstand the topic. These difficulties are shown through the questions that are asked and/or the answers to assignments that are given in class on the day that the material is covered. (Pratt, 2005, p.63).

Through interactive lectures, teachers are better able to control the knowledge that they get across to the students. Interactive lectures allow instructors to know, before the tests, how well the students comprehend the material. They also allow the students to study, practice, and use the material prior to having to take the tests; this provides them with the ability to know where they are having problems, and what material they have a firm grasp on well before they are formally evaluated.

Benefits

As stated earlier, the benefits of interactive lecture are that the student are more engaged in the lecture, thus their knowledge of the subject matter is increased (Bonwell, 1997) Through using interactive lectures, the instructor is also aware of where their students stand with regard to knowledge of the subject matter well before the tests. Instructors no longer have to gauge their students’ faces during a lecture to determine how much their students comprehend, they are able to determine through the responses and interactions during the lecture. This way the instructors are more confident that the students have a firm grasp of the concepts and the students are more confident in their own understanding of the material. If the students are having trouble with the material then the instructor can review or clarify the material immediately, instead of finding out that there was trouble through a formal test. (Pratt, 2005, p.62)

Drawbacks and Cautions

Bonwell and Eison (1991) state that some of the obstacles that are associated with interactive lectures are “limited class time, a possible increase in preparation time, the potential difficulty of using active learning in large classes, and a lack of needed material, equipment, or resources.” He indicates that the larges obstacle is the risk involved. What if the students do not participate or they do not learn the material that they should through using these interactive techniques. The instructor could be criticized for not teaching in the traditional manner. Also, many times instructors are concerned that they will not get enough material across in interactive lectures and will consequently negatively affect student learning (Van Dijk, et. al. 2001).

Final Thoughts

Many people have a strong opinion that lecturing or teaching from the Transmission Perspective is a bad thing. I do not agree with this notion. I feel that as long as teachers are engaging their students with the subject matter, it does not matter and the students truly learn during the process then the teacher should be able to teach however the feel is most appropriate. I feel that interactive lecturing provides teachers with the immediate feedback on students understanding of the content that is needed to ensure that their students are where they are supposed to be with respect to understanding the material.

There is one professor in the MPA program here at NCSU that teaches strictly from the Transmission Perspective, and most of the MPA students would say that they learned more from his classes than any other class. This professor uses the interactive lecturing strategy where he asks questions of the class during the lecture and assigns group work during the class where we then present our conclusions to the class and discuss our reasoning. It is extremely clear that he is an expert in his field and he uses his expertise to pass the content onto us, the students. He is a master at knowing when to ask questions of the class and when to simply pause to allow questions to arise. His classes are clearly structured and the content fits perfectly into the allowed time. Both of the classes that he teaches at the MPA level are hierarchical in structure. Even though we, as students are not in the foreground in his classes, many students learn as much, if not more from his classes than we do from any other class in the MPA program.

References

Bonwell, C.C. (1997). Using Active Learning as Assessment in the Postsecondary Classroom. Clearing House, 71 (2). p. 73-76.

Bonwell, C.C. Eison, J.A. (1991). Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom. ERIC Digest. p.1-6. ED340272.

Pratt, D.D. (2005). Fiver Perspectives on Teaching in Adult and Higher Education. Chapters 3 and 4. Krieger Publishing Company. Malabar, Fl.

Ruhl, K. L., C. A. Hughes, and P. J. Schloss. (1987). Using the pause Procedure to Enhance Lecture Recall. Teacher Education and Special Education 10 (winter). p.14-18

Van Dijk, L. A.; Van Den Berg, G. C.; Van Keulen, H. (2001). Interactive Lectures in Engineering Education. European Journal of Engineering Education, v26 n1 p.15-28

Wisconsin Center for Educational Research: http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/CL/doingcl/qkwrite.htm