CREATING A LECTURE THAT STUDENTS WILL ACTUALLY LEARN FROMDoug Doblar

LSTC, Britt Elementary

Lecture:

(n) - The exposition of a given topic delivered to an audience or class for the purpose of instruction

(n) – A primarily oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a given subject.

A Synopsis:

“Though lectures are much criticised as a teaching method, schools and universities have not yet found practical alternative teaching methods for the large majority of their courses. Critics point out that lecturing is mainly a one-way method of communication that does not involve significant audience participation. Therefore, lecturing is often contrasted to active learning. Lectures delivered by talented speakers can be highly stimulating; at the very least, lectures have survived in academia as a quick, cheap and efficient way of introducing large numbers of students to a particular field of study.” (Wikipedia entry)

Discussion

What I see: lecturing (or teacher presentation) is very, very, very frequently used teaching method in ES, MS, and HS classes. It is also highly criticized as ineffective by professors, administrators, and academic coaches.

What do you see, hear, and think? Lecturing: The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Purpose of this Workshop

Lecturing is highly familiar and valuable to teachers, but gets a bad rap.

Lecturing is not a GCPS Quality Plus Teaching Strategy, but it is something I do often at Britt.

With 1-2 fairly quick and simple technological additions, I can enhance lectures with: Modeling and Practice (QPTS 3) Vocabulary (QPTS 4) Non-verbal representation (QPTS 5) Summarizing (QPTS 6) Background knowledge (QPTS 8) Questioning (QPTS 9) Technology (QPTS 10) Comparison and Contrast (QPTS 13)

What is a “media dump”?

Rudimentary website (I use a wiki) Organize EXISTING resources (pics,

videos, links) to supplement or replace lecture info

Benefits: Can be used over and over (and at home) Visual organization Interesting Provides initial structure/plan, but still free to

be flexible

Examples

Memorize the locations of the major rivers and mountain ranges in the USA (3rd grade)

http://3rd-grade-rivers-mountains.wikispaces.com/

Learn the features of certain rocks and minerals (3rd grade)

http://limestone-zuber.wikispaces.com/

Make your own!

Steps

www.wikispaces.com Username: gdlc2012 Password: gdlc2012 (Or make your own account)

Choose a topic Google pictures, links, videos Remember… not just what tells about it.

What makes it interesting? Ex: Granite caves Ex: Hudson River plane landing

Question Breaks

Stopping for “question breaks” let’s you see whether or not you’re getting through

What is wrong with just asking questions?

Two Examples

Low Tech (Rivers Lecture) High Tech (Granite Lecture)

Add some in

Question Breaks