Effective Teaching in Classroom

 Effective Teaching in the Classroom (24 May 2011)

What are the three words that one could use to describe good or effective lecture, vis-a-vis an effective or a bad one? Jason Adsit, Director of the Teaching and Learning Centre at the University of Buffalo, shares useful tips that we believe will make the task clearer to not only young faculty, but to old-timers too                 .

Three main points of an "effective" lecture are participation, engagement and information. Thus, steps to an effective lecture ideally should be:

Planning
Don't ever wing it. Don't be too fond of the sound of your voice and carry on about a subject, or a lecture. Always pause and gauge whether students are listening. Ask questions, arrange the class into groups and then pit them against one another in a debate.

Avoid tyranny of content
Don't overdo things so much so that you are overwhelmed by what needs to be covered and in how much time.

Know your audience
Remember that lectures are not about "teaching", it's all about "student learning". Remember the first time that as a student you learnt a new concept or idea – thus a little empathy would go a long way.

Create a complete lecture
Focus on an introduction, body and conclusion. The introduction should set the context straight. It should let students know what the content is, how it relates to the discipline and why they need to learn it. The body is the main lecture, but it should be punctuated with pauses and interactions, just to keep it lively and interesting.

Engage your audience
Remember that teaching is a bit of a performance art.

Visual back–ups are essential
There are evil PowerPoint presentations and great ones. Matter of fact, to the point and brief presentations fall in the latter category.

Quality control
Before any such presentation mandatory checks of links and technology is a must. But one cannot prevent botch-ups. In case there is a failure of server or backup power, keep a back-up plan.

Enthusiasm
Try to demonstrate why an information is important to the students. Appreciate the topic that you are teaching. Keep conversations and dialogues flowing by asking questions that elicit response.

Ask questions
Prepare a set of questions that you will ask at the end of the class. Instead of just asking if there are "any questions" be specific.

Answer questions
Always answer questions that are being asked. If you can't, come back to it in the next class.

Reflect on the class
Do a post-mortem of the class that was.

Don't be afraid to take risks
At the end of the day there are no "right" or "wrong" ways of conducting lectures. There are only "effective" and "ineffective" ways.