Lecture Preparation

Preparation

http://teaching.berkeley.edu/tenways.html

You probably can't cover everything you want to in a lecture.

Decide what is essential, what is important, and what is helpful (what would be nice).

• Cover the first; try to cover the second; forget about the third.

• Release a little control over the material and rely on the textbook or a list of supplementary readings for the nonessentials.

Set objectives.

• What do you want to have accomplished at the end of the lecture?

• What do you want the students to know at the end of the lecture?

Plan a lecture to cover less than the entire period.

• It takes some time to get going.

• Questions always take up more time than you expect.

Divide the lecture into discrete segments and follow the standard speech structure.

• Divide it both in terms of time and in terms of material.

• Try for ten or fifteen minute blocks, each one of a topic.

• Briefly summarize the previous lecture; introduce the topic(s) for the day; present the material; summarize briefly; preview any homework and the next lecture.

Lecture from notes or an outline, rather than a complete text.

• It's too tempting to simply read, rather than lecture, from a complete text.

• Reading also creates a barrier between lecturer and audience.

• Writing up an entire lecture is very time consuming.

• A written lecture often becomes a fossil that never gets updated.

From: Ten Ways to Make Your Teaching More Effective

Office of Educational Development, Division of Undergraduate Education

University of California-Berkeley