Lesson 1: Interactive Lecture

• Interactive lecture


  A simple technique for instructors to engage students intellectually and include them as active participants in any lecture-based class size
• Interactive lectures


  • Seminars in which the instructor interrupts the lecture at least once per class to have students participate in an activity that allows them to interact directly with the material
• Lecturing


  A time-honored teaching strategy that is effective for presenting vast volumes of content in courses of any size, as well as sharing information with large numbers of students, but may result in students who listen passively
• Making lectures interactive

  • Fosters active engagement and accountability
  • Promotes student retention and learning of the material presented during lecture
  • Gives students practice in developing critical-thinking skills
  • Enables instructors to assess how well the class is learning that day
• Deep learning


  Leads to a genuine understanding that promotes long-term retention of the learned material and the ability to retrieve it and apply it to new problems in unfamiliar concepts
• Surface learning


  Focuses on the uncritical acceptance of knowledge with an emphasis on memorization of unquestioned, unrelated facts. Retention is fleeting and there is little long-term retention and less
• Types of lectures categorized by levels of student interaction


  • Formal lecture
  • Socratic lecture
  • Semi-formal lecture
  • Lecture-discussion
  • Interactive lecture
• Formal lecture


  The lecturer delivers a well-organized, tightly constructed, and highly polished presentation. This type of lecture works well for teaching large groups of students (e.g. TED talks)
• Socratic lecture


  This type of lecture, which typically follows a reading assignment to give students a baseline of knowledge, is structured around a series of carefully sequenced questions. The instructor asks a single student a question sequence. The questions require the student to use logic and inference skills
• Semi-formal lecture


  Somewhat similar to the formal lecture, the semiformal lecture is less elaborate in form and production. Occasionally, the lecturer entertains student questions during the presentation of material
• Lecture-discussion


  This sort of teaching fosters more student participation. The lecturer gives the talk, but he or she frequently stops to ask students questions or to have them read their prepared materials. The direction of engagement can be one of three: (1) instructor to class, (2) instructor to individual student, or (3) individual student to instructor
• Interactive lecture


  In this version of lecturing, the instructor uses mini-lectures about 20 minutes long and involves students in a range of brief content-related activities in between. Interaction may occur between instructor and students or between and among students
• Types of lectures categorized by content


  • Expository lecture
  • Storytelling lecture
  • Point-by-point lecture
  • Lecture-demonstration
  • Problem solving lecture
• Expository lecture


  In this approach, the teacher is communicating maximum information to the students in a minimum of time. This approach helps the teacher to cover the content to be taught to the students. This approach is widely used across all subjects and different levels of education by the teacher
• Storytelling lecture


  The instructor presents concepts and content through a story to illustrate a concept
• Point-by-point lecture


  The instructor presents information about a single concept, question, or issue. The organizational structure is typically an outline format, with a hierarchical organization of major and minor points
• Lecture-demonstration


  The content involves a demonstration of a process or activity. The lecture typically proceeds in chronological order, with the demonstration presented in a sequence of events that the lecturer highlights and explains
• Problem solving lecture


  The process of identifying an existing problem, determining the root cause or causes of the problem, deciding the best course of action in order to solve the problem, and then finally implementing it to solve the problem
• Types of lectures categorized by medium


  • Chalk and talk lecture
  • Multimedia lecture
  • Video lecture
• Chalk and talk lecture


  A formal method of teaching, in which the focal points are the blackboard and the teacher's voice, as contrasted with more informal child-centered activities
• Multimedia lecture


  Presentations featuring multiple types of media. The different types of media can include text, graphics, audio, video, and animations. These different types of media convey information to their target audience and effectively communicate with them
• Video lecture


  A pre-recorded video of a teacher or expert delivering a lesson or presentation on a particular topic
• Steps for creating an interactive lecture

  1. Engage in pre-instructional planning

  2. Select engagement triggers and learning tasks for interactive segments

  3. Select and adapt from interactive lecture techniques

  4. Structure and manage the interactive class session

  5. Select mechanisms and methods for collecting, organizing, and responding to feedback
• Pre-instructional planning


  The first step in providing an interactive lecture experience. Involves choosing content, establishing learning objectives, considering incentive structure, designing overall classroom atmosphere for participation, and addressing logistical issues to ensure that the classroom environment is conducive to successful interactive lectures
• Engagement triggers


  Things used to capture student attention at the beginning of an interactive lecture segment, such as evocative visuals, physical props, cartoons, photographs, evocative textual passages, news clips, or clips from movies or television shows
• Learning tasks


  The actual activities that the lecturer assigns to students, such as interpreting a graph, making calculations and estimations, making predictions from demonstrations, brainstorming, tying ideas together, applying what has just been learned in class, reading to solve a problem or apply a concept, or coming up with a policy recommendation
• Interactive lecture techniques

  • Think-pair-share
  • One-minute write
  • Question of the day
  • Demonstrations
  • ConcepTests
  • Role playing
  • Skeleton notes
  • Simulations
  • Experiments
• Think-pair-share


  An activity that requires students to ponder an issue individually and discuss it with a neighbor before deciding on a final response
• One-minute write


  An activity that requires students to compose a response within one minute, which can be used to gather feedback on comprehension or provide students with the possibility to apply immediately
• Question of the day


  A short activity for the beginning of class that engages students with the lecture material in a short project that requires students to think actively about the content
• Demonstrations


  Activities that entail all or a selection of students showing a previously taught or upcoming idea or principle to the class, requiring students to predict results, experience the demonstrations, and reflect by comparing the prediction and actual outcomes
• ConcepTests


  Conceptual multiple-choice questions intended to evaluate student understanding, which can be used to encourage higher-level thinking, including analysis, critical thinking, and synthesis
• Role playing


  Activities that put students in decision-making positions, requiring them to apply content to create policies or solve problems, often calling upon higher-order thinking skills and the synthesis of concepts
• Skeleton notes


  Instances of handouts or PowerPoint slides that encourage students to take incomplete notes during lectures to keep them engaged
• Simulations


  Extended demonstrations that allow students to analyze more complex situations and produce a broader range of responses
• Experiments


  Active learning activities that allow students to tackle more complex problems
• Feedback in interactive lectures


  Provides immediate or rapid responses from students, allows for an immediate or rapid response from the instructor, can motivate students to participate more fully in activities, and allows the instructor to instantly modify the lecture as needed