Create Engaging Lectures
What's the Use of Lectures?
This book by Donald Bligh provides a comprehensive guide to the uses and possible abuses of the lecture method. Supported by copious research, Bligh offers a wealth of practical suggestions for making lectures more engaging and effective.
Wireless Response Technology in College Classrooms
In this book, H. Arthur Woods and Charles Chiu report on the results of using wireless response systems to students in large chemistry and biology lectures at University Texas at Austin.
Video clips, audio segments, images and simulations can deepen students' understanding of concepts presented during lectures.
Strategies
Poll students electronically
You can use student response systems to poll students on a series of questions in order to gauge their comprehension of presented material. Some systems include the ability to get feedback from students while the lecture is in progress, which allows you to quickly identify topics that need more explanation.
Use multimedia examples
Still images, demonstrations, simulations or audio and video clips can be easily integrated into lectures with presentation programs and/or DVD players. For example, online video clips can be played, without being cued, from within a presentation by embedding a Web link.
In classrooms with a computer for each student, you can display one student’s solution to a problem on all the students' computers.
Document cameras, which some classrooms have, allow you to display small objects – lab equipment, a rock sample, fossil, map, coin, or postcard – to large classes.
Present and preserve lectures digitally
Using presentation software, such as PowerPoint or Keynote, you can create a class presentation with an organized outline. The outline can serve as a touchstone for class discussion and allows students to spend less time taking notes and more time responding to the lecture. Some instructors make presentations available to students before class; this allows students to print out a copy, or download a copy onto a laptop, for note taking during the lecture. Some technologies also allow you to record audio of your class lectures that can be synchronized with your lecture notes; in some cases, students can add their own notes in class by using laptops that are synchronized to your presentation.
TabletPCs or drawing tablets used in conjunction with a traditional computer allow the lecturer to draw handwritten notes over pre-existing images. A SmartBoard lets you save digitally, then printout, notes and diagrams drawing on a special electronic whiteboard. Most of these types of presentations can be shared with students after class by uploading a file to Blackboard or to a streaming media server.
Examples
Touch Screen Computers To Make Lectures Intuitive and Retrievable
A profile from Duke University CIT on mathematics professor Tom Witelski using touch screen computers to present equations, notes, graphs and plots of data.
Enhancing Lectures
A profile on the Duke University Blackboard Web site on history professor John Thompson using Blackboard to store multimedia materials for class and homework.
Thinking Differently, Technology Goes to School
An article from Duke Magazine that surveys technology in Duke classrooms.
Blending Online and Traditional Instruction in the Mathematics Classroom
An article from The Technology Source.
Using Technology to Enhance the Effectiveness of Chemistry Courses
An article from The Technology Source.
Digital Chem 1A
A Web site for an introductory chemistry class at the University of California, Berkeley.
Tools
Computer classrooms
For facilitating group work on computers during a class session; see the Arts & Science's Interactive Computer Classroom or the Franklin Center’s Mobile Multimedia Macintosh Cluster.
Document cameras
Displays objects and texts through an LCD projector; one example is Canon’s Video Visualizer. Ask for it when you reserve a classroom.
Student response systems
Tools to administer in-class questionnaires and surveys, and then analyze and display the results; Arts & Sciences Computing lists classrooms with Personal Response Systems.
PowerPoint
The MS Office standard presentation package, which includes outlining mode for easy organization of lecture content.
SmartBoard
A digitally whiteboard that both displays a computer screen and acts as a touch screen to annotate and control the display. Ask for it when you reserve a classroom.
Streaming video
Standard method for presenting audio or video on the Web; Duke support three common formats: RealMedia, Quicktime and Windows Media.
