TO:
FROM: Robin Y. Mabry-Hubbard <rymabry@socket.net>
DATE:
SUBJECT: Challenging Your Assumptions about Effective Teaching & Student Note Taking
I had decided at the beginning of the semester to "take it easy" . . . I would not mull over my $750 investment; the substantial investment of time, and the economic opportunity . . . Then I attended Dr. Middleton's speech on Thursday and was reminded of the importance of individual advocacy. It nothing personal but effective college teaching is my passion.
Regarding our discussion on posting your transparencies to . . . website let me begin by saying, I am as passionate about "effective college teaching" as some Black sociologist are about the role "Black Studies" as a liberation movement." I have taken on "full professors/department chairs" to "untrained graduate TAs" to "indifferent administrators" as part of the (PET) or "effective college teaching" movement rapidly gaining ground in higher education.
When a student takes on a department chair in their own academic unit, one has to be prepared for serious potential consequences -- including an end to their academic career. Despite the threats, I was not deterred and I emerged from that semester-long battle a little bloodied and bruised but I know I made a difference for future students. MU is part of the consortium of schools, Preparing Future Faculty movement that recognizes subject-matter expertise does not automatically translate into classroom effectiveness.
As a visiting lecturer at Ohio State some years ago, Professor Tony Grasha of the University of Cincinnati titled his talk, "How Can I Teach You If I Don't Know How You Learn?" Although Grasha's question seems perfectly logical, quite amazingly, colleges and universities have traditionally had no formal requirements for any study of learning theory in the backgrounds of the people they hire to teach. The assumption has been that if one knows a body of knowledge, one can teach it. Recently, this assumption has been questioned and more systematic efforts to prepare graduate students and new faculty for teaching have been undertaken. Knowing how students learn involves exploring theories of cognition and motivation, knowing the backgrounds of the students one will teach and being aware of differences in learning styles and stages of development among one's students."
Accordingly, MU
2. LECTURING FOR EFFECTIVE STUDENT LEARNING:
Lecturing is only one tool of many and can be effective for almost all students when properly used and supported by :
Course Management Software like WebCT and BLACKBOARD permits instructors to post their notes or notetaking outlines so students can concentrate on listening, evaluating, comprehending, synthesizing and analyzing. This is an essential part of the learning process and comes from the having the "real time" opportunity to listen to, jot down and annotate the key points and examples rather then transcribing the instructors' lecture or worse recopying already prepared definitions, facts and etc.. If most of the students time is spent transcribing the key points, there is no time for neurological learning processes to take place. I believe "when we know better we should do better" and not use the lame excuse, "well, that is how I was taught and it worked for me." There is an obligation to teach for effective notetaking and therefore learning.
As requested, I am providing a brief pedagogical review,
art & science of teaching/learning, of effective teaching for student learning by notetaking. To
that end, I have peppered this email with helpful links on improving lecturing
and class preparation for effective teaching. Below I have outlined the
basics by selecting passages from various articles that referenced the research
and publications surrounding the scholarship of teaching. I focused my
selection on those articles that also provided specific instructional
activities for improving effective college teaching through lecture. You can
read the full text by clicking on the appropriate link.
QUESTION: Why post your notes or provide advance organizers (note taking guide)?
SOME ANSWERS:
1. ". . . McIntyre found that students averaged recall of less than 60% of the information in the lecture and were able to record only about half of the ideas in the lecture . . ."(Are the Skills We Are Teaching Obsolete? A Review of Recent Research in Reading and Study Skills, )
2. ". . . traditional
lecturing and notetaking, certified by periodic examinations, was created for a
time when books were scarce and costly . . . David Johnson et al (1998) have
identified six specific pedagogical problems associated with lecturing. They
are:
1. Students' attention to what the lecturer is saying decreases as the lecture proceeds. Students concentrate and assimilate material for 10-15 minutes whereupon their attention falls off rapidly.
2. For a lecture to be effective it takes an educated, intelligent person oriented toward an auditory learning style.
3. Lecturing tends to promote only lower-level learning of factual information.
4. Lecturing is limited by the assumption that all students need the same information presented orally at the same time and at the same pace, without dialogue with the presenter, and in an impersonal way.
5. Students tend not to like lecturing.
6. Lecturing is based upon a series of assumptions [research has shown not to be true] about the cognitive capabilities and strategies of students. It assumes that all students learn auditorially, have high working memory capacity, have all required prior knowledge, have good notetaking strategies and skills, and are not susceptible to information processing overload.It is clear that the simple transmission of information through a lecture is not an effective approach to meeting the goals of helping students become independent, critical problem solvers, able to interact with their peers in social and employment situations. . ." (Who Will Teach in the 21st Century?”)
3. Teaching Strategies: EFFECTIVE LECTURES from University of Kentucky's Teaching and Learning Center notes:
"The instructor needs to help the audience by: involving them, perhaps through active learning strategies; facilitating the process of constructing new knowledge through assessing previous knowledge in pretests, interviews, surveys, using advance organizers in the form of structured outlines to build on the base, and consciously linking new information to what is already known; and recognizing diverse learning styles. "
4. Lecturing Interactively in the
University Classroom from the
"Encourage students to take notes. The process of writing notes helps them remember the lecture content and stay attentive to what’s going on. To help students make good notes, provide a clear structure for the lecture, and use a pace that allows them to keep up (remember not to rush when using pre-prepared visual aids). Rather than writing extensive notes that students must copy word for word, write key terms on the board or slides to facilitate students’ own processing of the information, or provide skeletal course notes for the students to annotate. Pause regularly so that students can ask for clarification."
5. Teaching
Handbook: IV COMMON TEACHING SITUATIONS: LECTURING from
“… best lectures invite students to think imaginatively and conceptually about a significant theme or problem. They do more than "cover the material." . . . While striving for clarity and concision, you should also try for a relaxed, conversational tone: it’s usually a mistake to rely extensively on a verbatim text. Repetition, deadly in print, is essential in an oral context, but it’s important to repeat points with variations and to avoid a static presentation. . .
. . . The way you structure a lecture can make all the difference in whether students retain the material. . . They only get a once-through, and their attention is divided between thinking about what you say and deciding what to write down. Therefore it is crucial, first that you do not try to say too much and, second, that you indicate–by emphasis, repetition, and summaries–the major points and how they connect.
A good rule of thumb is that your topic should require no more than three to, at the outside, five major points for its adequate development. You could probably state your main points in just ten or fifteen minutes, except that the presentation would be too concentrated. A good lecturer spends the majority of the hour aiding the students’ memory and understanding by the use of examples, questions, analogies, and restatements.
A second useful rule is the familiar advice "Tell them what you’re going to tell them; tell them; then tell them what you’ve told them." Proficient lecturers often begin by briefly outlining the points they will cover–or raising questions that the lecture will answer. They then develop the points through examples and discussion. And, finally, they conclude by reviewing the main ideas, to fix them in the students’ minds.
When you plan how to develop the topic, you’ll need to consider your students’ attention spans. Most students can concentrate intently for perhaps only five to ten minutes at a time. You can present the central concepts in brief, concentrated doses during these five to ten minute periods and then offer a mini-summary at the end, to keep students caught up. You can watch the students’ faces as a guide to your pacing. You’ll find that you need to pause after complicated ideas, to give the students time to think. And, even more importantly, strive for simplicity of statement. Since the students can’t replay or reread parts of your lecture, it’s a mistake to use several newly defined terms together. Expand on one new term at a time until it becomes familiar in various contexts. Avoid too many grammatically complex sentences as well. Puzzled looks are a good indicator that you need to restate an idea more simply, provide an example, or ask for questions. . .
Overhead Projector
Overheads have their pitfalls [same is true for PowerPoint’s and Slides] as well, however. There are several points to keep in mind . . .
Transparencies can easily become an excuse for overloading students with information. Check to see if your overheads are just long lists of unrelated facts. If so, try regrouping material into categories that will be easier to remember. Make sure that any one overhead has only a few important points on it.
Don’t make your lecture and your transparencies exact duplicates of each other. If you simply read what’s on the overhead, student attention will wander. They’ll start to read on their own and soon forget to listen to you. Leave room for surprises, additional commentary, changes, things students have to add, fill in, or watch for.Handouts
You can also hand out summaries of your lectures to the class. These may be copies of your overheads, if you use them, or they may be copies of your own (clearly written) lecture outlines. "
7. TA
HANDBOOK: LECTURING from the
· ". . . Lectures do not readily promote higher levels of learning such as application, analysis, and synthesis. [Required process for successful essay writing]
·
Lectures assume that all students are learning at the same pace and at the same
level of understanding, which is hardly ever true.
·
Lectures rarely sustain student attention, and tend to be forgotten more
quickly than more interactive lessons. . ."
8. " Effective College Teaching suggest:
·
Give a brief overview of the lecture, and place
an outline on the board or
overhead projector.
· Divide the lecture into short ten to fifteen minute segments.
·
Avoid continuous note
taking by preparing handouts for complex
material and
pausing for questions. Periods of silence
allow time for students to digest ideas...
· Watch for students’ cues that signal awareness or lack of understanding.
·
Encourage active participation by asking
questions or providing problems to
solve.
·
Reinforce lecture
content by summarizing main points and having students apply
knowledge in a written assignment or quiz."
9. Specific Lecture Enhancing Strategies
o
"There are two approaches to expose
students to the lecture's content. Most faculty use a
combination of a lecture outline, diagram, and overview. Alternatively,
the advance organizer may be preferable for
academically weak students. . . The outline serves two
purposes. First, the instructor shares the lecture's
organization with the students, and "tells them what he is going to
tell them." Using a lecture outline (or, better yet, a diagram) helps
students see the lecture's "flow". Second, the instructor can use the outline or diagram as he moves
from one major point to the next during the lecture.
In this way, the students know where they have been and where they are heading.
The diagram is road map into the unknown. " (
o
“An advance organizer
can be a topical outline, diagram, or concept map
that has the primary purpose of providing a coherent
structure for the presentation of the involved instructional material.
An effective advance organizer clarifies the scope and sequence of a lesson for
the teacher and student by providing an overview of the lesson content.
Accordingly, an advance organizer assists students in structuring their
thinking, class notes, and out-of-class study. . ." ( Stack the Deck
in Favor of Your Students by Using the Four Aces of Effective Teaching
)
o Study guide questions. Prior to the start of each course unit, the students are provided with a list of assigned readings and study guide questions. The students are required to complete the study guide questions before each . . . In addition to highlighting the most critical concepts from both the assigned readings and lectures, the study guide questions serve a number of the following important pedagogical functions. They provide an advance organizer for the unit and a conceptual framework that the students may use to think about the related subject matter. They motivate students to engage in outside-of-class study and enable students to review concepts that have been taught in previous units. The study guide questions also challenge students to reflect on the connections between the course content and its eventual application . . . The study guide questions basically provide the student with a conceptual framework for the theoretical component of the course. (Behavioral Course Design and Student Learning)
10. Summary: Strategies, tips and strategies
Summary: Ideas on Lecturing From A Variety of Places and People
My request is to post transparencies or a lecture outline (advanced organizer) to the course website before or after class consistent with best practices for effective teaching. The assumption that notetaking skills comes "naturally" by just doing and is an effective practice for all undergraduates is not supported by the literature. In fact, the converse is more likely true for most learners regardless of age or university level. Teaching, lecturing and note taking, like any skill, must be learned (taught). Effective notetaking skills presuppose the instructor is an effective lecturer and the class is comprised of primarily auditory learners as opposed to a random mix of all major learning styles.