Lectures bore me. I am one of those students who checks out
when the teacher starts drowning on and on and on. I can’t sit through it now
and I defiantly could not sit through it in high school! So why are teachers
still lecturing for ENTIRE class periods and thinking that the students are
learning everything that is being presented??
This week in 407 we learned about how to lecture, and for
the past couple of days I have been thinking more and more about the concept of
lectures and how we can re-purpose them to actually be useful. Dr. Horwitz said
that teachers must be purposeful with the lecture by communicating,
summarizing, tailoring, enhancing, motivating, and modeling. Lectures should
also be kept between 10 and 18 minutes. I can think of classes that I had or am
currently taking where these guidelines were or are not being followed. I’m
sure we have all had experiences similar to mine where your mind is somewhere else has the teacher goes onto their 30th slide of the two
hour class. By knowing how to use lectures truly does have an impact on what
the students takes in and ultimately their ability to retain the information. One
of the points that was brought up during our lecture on lectures is that people
generally remember 20% of what they hear in a lecture. Students learn 50% of
what they hear and see. This blog post doesn’t hate on the use of lectures. I can
also remember when lectures were used and they were so informative and to the point
about the topic. There is a time and place for lectures, and teachers need to
know how to use them correctly with their students.
I enjoyed having a lecture on lectures so that I can have
the guidelines to follow when I go to create a lecture on an important English
topic. Teachers need to know how to properly use lectures so that the students don’t coast through the class, and actually have a chance to retain that 20-50%
of knowledge they are most likely to remember.
It hasn't been until the middle of my college career that I actually started to fall asleep in tht middle of a lecture because that is all professors like to do for two hours straight. I am exhausted and don' like sitting through all that. Some people actually skip class because they just don't want to deal with another lecture. It is definitely something that a lot of teachers need to learn effectively. I have one professor who lectures for 80 minutes every class day, but everything he writes on the board is all in handouts that he gives us, so I have no need to take notes and become bored and disengaged from the professor.
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