How to Create Memorable Lectures (Part 1)

How to Create Memorable Lectures (Part 1)

In general, students capture only 20-40 percent of a lecture's main ideas in their notes (Kiewra, 2002, p. 72). Without reviewing the lecture material, students remember less than 10 percent after three weeks (Bligh, 2000, p. 40). All instructors hope that their lectures will be the exception, but these numbers present a clear challenge: How can we guarantee that students learn and remember what we teach? How do we create and deliver lectures that stay with students long past the last few minutes of class? In this newsletter we take up this challenge, by considering how students attend to, make sense of, and absorb new information.

The Learning Process: From Attention to Comprehension to Integration

Cognitive theories describe three phases of the learning process (see Schneider for an extensive discussion of theories). In the first phase, we decide what to attend to. We cannot notice everything that is going on in our environment, so we orient our attention selectively. In the classroom, we hope that students are attending to us, but many things compete for their attention. If we want students to learn, we need to capture their attention.

In the second step of learning, we organize what we observe into a coherent mental pattern or structure. In the classroom, students are constantly interpreting what you say, what they read on the blackboard, and what they see on slides. Students must decide how to organize this information in their own minds (and notes). The more you can provide students with a framework for interpreting lecture material, the easier it is for them to understand new ideas.

These first two phases of learning create a short-term memory for new information. To fully "own" new information in long-term memory, we need to rehearse the new information and connect it to existing frameworks of knowledge. This gives new information meaning beyond the particular learning occasion, and makes it easier to retrieve. This final phase of learning begins in the classroom, with review and application, and continues out of the classroom through well-crafted assignments.

How can you use this information in your lecture? James R. Davis describes a simple approach to maximizing the first two stages of learning: "Get the students' attentionŠtell the students what to pay attention to... and don't overload the system" (p. 141). These three strategies address the initial learning environment- the classroom-and can help a lecturer communicate material effectively. To these basic strategies, we add one more strategy that takes into account the final stage of learning: Give students the opportunity to review and apply lecture material, both in class and between classes. This strategy guarantees that students will fully integrate the material and make the knowledge their own-and that is what makes a lecture truly memorable.

Get Students' Attention

Every lecturer hopes that the pure beauty and intrigue of ideas and information will captivate students. Before students engage with ideas, however, they must first be engaged by the instructor. Therefore, like any public speaker, the lecturer's first task is to capture the audience's attention. A lecturer must connect with students and draw them into the lecture.

This rapport can be accomplished in a variety of ways, from attention-grabbing gimmicks to highly thoughtful approaches. Most instructors are wary of gimmicks; a common concern is that any attempt to appeal to students' interests will lower the intellectual quality of a lecture. However, engaging students needn't be at the expense of high academic standards. As a lecturer, you don't need to be a performer or an entertainer; you simply need to keep your audience in mind, and find the most direct way to interest students in your material.

One of the most basic and direct ways to attract and keep students' interest is instructor expressiveness-the use of vocal variation, facial expression, movement, and gesture. This tactic can be applied to any lecture content, from Shakespeare to statistics. Students are more likely to pay attention to instructors who exhibit expressive behaviors, because expressive instructors are more interesting to attend to and easier to understand. For this reason, expressiveness enhances communication and facilitates student comprehension. Students also tend to interpret an instructor's expressiveness as enthusiasm for the subject, and enthusiasm in the classroom is contagious. Expressive behaviors intrigue students, and encourage them to actively consider the lecture material. For these reasons, expressive behaviors lead to higher levels of student achievement and satisfaction (R. P. Perry, 1985, quoted in Murray, p. 192).

The famous "Dr. Fox" experiments, first conducted by Ware and Williams in the mid-seventies, illustrate the effects of instructor expressiveness (see Murray, 1997). The experiments used six videotaped lectures, all given by a professional actor assuming the persona of "Dr. Fox." The topic of each lecture was biochemistry, but the amount of information in each lecture varied (low, medium, or high). In addition, lectures were presented with either a low or high level of "seductiveness." "High seductiveness" was defined in terms of expressive behavior: the use of movement, gesture, vocal emphasis, humor, and charisma. "Low seductiveness" was characterized by a flat, matter-of-fact style.

Students who watched the highly expressive lectures performed better on a multiple-choice recall test than students who watched the less expressive lectures. This suggests that expressiveness enhances students' memory for the lecture content. Students who watched the highly expressive lectures also gave higher ratings to the instructor, independent of the level of information provided in the lectures. The authors coined this last finding the "Dr. Fox Effect." Students may give high ratings to teachers who convey almost no content, but present their lectures enthusiastically. Lectures can be enjoyable but still fail to meet important teaching goals.

However, as Murray argues, there is no reason to believe that expressive behaviors "are in any way incompatible with more traditional criteria of effective teaching, such as content coverage and high academic standards" (p. 196). To avoid the Dr. Fox Effect, keep in mind that expressiveness is more about communication than entertainment. The key teaching goals of each lecture are still to increase students' knowledge and skills, not to entertain students. Expressiveness is simply a tool for engaging students with the material, not an end to itself. A good litmus test for whether expressiveness is effective, rather than merely entertaining, is whether it invites students to be active, rather than passive, learners. It is important to ask yourself: Once you have students' attention, what are you doing with it?

Expressiveness can be learned, through training and practice. The Center for Teaching and Learning provides a number of resources for instructors looking to develop expressive skills (including class videotaping and oral communication training). Expressiveness can also be enhanced by the instructor's own engagement with the material. Even though the material is familiar to you, you can rediscover its importance and appeal each time you share it with new students.

When we think back to those teachers who captivated our attention during a lecture, they undoubtedly used different strategies suited to their individual temperaments, styles, and disciplines. Some may have been more typically charismatic, and others less showy but deeply passionate about ideas. Some may have owned the lecture hall physically, acting out their lectures, while others may have kept us riveted with their ability to tell a good story. What they probably all shared, however, was presence. Not stage presence, but presence in the sense of being truly present: physically, emotionally, and intellectually. The expressiveness that follows from full presence is a natural attention-grabber-no gimmicks needed.