How to Get More Activity and Engagement From Classroom Lectures

Briefly…

Despite being one of the most common forms of teaching, lecture has acquired a negative reputation in education.  Critics point to the lack of student engagement and critical thinking.  Sure, lectures can be overused.  However, with a few minor tweaks, classroom lectures can be an effective, engaging, and highly efficient means of instruction. 

How to do it…

Create frequent opportunities during and immediately after your lecture for students to process and apply the material.

Here are a few simple ways to increase student interaction with your lecture material.  They are broken into individual and partner categories, however, all can be easily adapted based on your needs.

Individual student strategies:

Headline–Have students review the lecture notes and write a headline or title that summarizes the key aspect or concept of the notes.  

Why It Works:  This requires that students reflect on the notes, think about the key aspects of it, and write a summary in their own words.  Bonus: it’s quick!

Visual–Have students create a symbol or visual that best captures the essence of that idea.

Why It Works:  This, again, forces students to reflect on the key idea of the lecture and then link it to something visual.  For those who dislike drawing, it may be helpful to explain that the purpose is not the drawing itself.  What they’re doing is creating connections in their memory between the information and the visuals they chose.

Quiz Questions–Have students review the material.  They then write one question that they might see on a quiz that they can answer and one that they could not.

Why It Works:  This exercise requires students to think about their understanding of the material.  If you ask if there are questions, most likely you will not get any hands raised.  Asking students to create quiz questions re-frames the task. They will think about what is most important from the material.  They will reflect on what they do and do not understand. 

Challenge It–Have students write a question or statement challenging an aspect of the material.  

Why It Works:  This works best in the humanities subjects.  Students engage with the material by considering their reactions to it and how it fits with their perspectives and beliefs.

Color Code–Students take three colored pencils (red, yellow, green) and review their notes.  For concepts they feel they know well, they draw a green line in the margin.  For concepts they do not understand, they draw a red line.  Yellow for concepts they feel they partially know.

Why It Works:  Using different colored pencils helps students think about which parts of the lecture they struggle to understand.  Rather than the teacher getting general questions or statements like “I don’t understand anything we just did,” this exercise gives them time to review and think about what it is that they do and do not understand.  This works best a day or two later.  Take a few minutes at the start of that class to have students do this exercise and then review the concepts that they have marked as red or yellow.   

Partner/Small Group Strategies:

Explain It–Partner One starts by naming the big idea of the lecture, Partner Two explains that big idea, Partner One gives reasons or details that build on the big idea, and Partner Two closes with a question about the material.

Why It Works:  Having students work together in an alternating fashion helps students piece the material together, bounce ideas off one another, and build on each other’s knowledge.  This works best with more complex topics where they may need more help to build their understanding of the material.

Looking Backward, Looking Forward–Partners review the lecture and then make one or two connections to previous material explaining how these concepts fit with that knowledge.  Students then “look forward.”  This can be by making connections to the real world, connections to another class, predictions about what could happen next, or an explanation of how this could or does impact something else.

Why It Works:  This exercise expands their thinking and asks that they build connections and build upon the material you have provided.  It works best when there will not be many questions about the content of the lecture. 

3, 2, 1–Conclusions, Connections, Questions–Students work together to come up with three conclusions they can draw from the notes, two connections they can make to the content and one question that they have.

Why It Works:  This exercise helps students to synthesize the material by drawing conclusions, creating connections beyond the material, and thinking about what questions still remain.  

Amanda Melsby has been a professional educator for 20 years.  She taught English before working as an assistant principal and later as a high school principal.  Amanda holds an Ed.D. in Educational Practice and Leadership and is currently a dean of teaching and learning.