How to Create Memorable Lectures (Part 2)

Direct Students' Attention

But even when students pay attention, they may fail to attend to the most important material in a lecture. Think of how much new content you share with students in just one lecture. Students need to absorb, record, and understand the steady flow of auditory and visual information. To do so, students must listen, view, think, and write, all at once. The juggling of these activities might explain why students' notes capture only 20-40 percent of a lecture's content. Because the content is new to students, it can be difficult for them to identify which ideas are critical and which are peripheral. How can we help students attend to the most important information, so that they understand and remember the key points of each lecture?

The solution is to provide students with a framework for each lecture, so that they can direct their attention to the most important information. One way to do this is to prepare a study guide for your course that describes each lecture's objectives, key concepts, and questions to consider (Schneider, p. 57). A handout with the lecture's major points will prepare students to listen and look for the central elements of the lecture. Skeletal lecture handouts, with room for students' notes, can also help students organize what they hear and see, and may be more effective than providing students with your full lecture notes (Kiewra, 2002, p. 72).As you prepare your lecture outlines, aim for three to five main points in each lecture, with clear links between each lecture topic and your main points.

You can also ask students to answer conceptual questions as they take notes during lecture. Each part of a lecture can be preceded by a high-level question that the upcoming information can answer. This encourages students to interpret and organize lecture content according to an important and useful conceptual framework. In one study, students who took notes trying to answer conceptual questions performed better on a recall test than students who took traditional notes that simply recorded information (Rickards & McCormick, 1988).

During lecture, be as explicit as possible about what students should focus on. Clearly introduce key concepts and definitions. Identify important themes as a way for students to sort through the content of the lecture. Use verbal and visual cues to highlight major points, categories, and steps of an argument. You can also direct students' attention to the most important points by asking them to review or explain those points during class. All of these strategies will help create a framework for students, so that they can quickly and accurately identify and understand the core ideas in your lecture.

Don't Overload the System

Once we have students' attention, we need to consider how quickly students can process information. Short-term memory requires time to process the sensory input we receive; students are not sponges and cannot immediately "absorb" new information. Give students short breaks throughout lecture to review their notes and ask questions. A short break that includes students' questions can also give the lecturer an opportunity to assess student understanding and adjust the remaining part of the lecture if needed.

You can also include a more formal activity or assignment after every 15-20 minutes of presentation. For example, ask students to summarize or paraphrase the last few important points, either in their notes or with the person sitting nearest them. You can then review the points and move on to the next phase in the lecture. Giving students and yourself a break has another advantage. The audience's attention in a lecture drops dramatically after ten minutes of listening (Bligh, 2000, p. 53). Students can remember most of the first ten minutes, but very little from the middle part of the lecture. A short break will revitalize the audience's attention, and students will be much more likely to remember information from throughout the lecture.

A final consideration involves how lecturers present information. Lecturers are often encouraged to use a wide range of presentation materials, including audio, video, and written materials. While this can attract students' attention, it can also overload students' attention. Cognitive overload occurs when different forms of processing interfere with each other (Mayer & Moreno, 2003, p. 45). A common example is when students are presented with an illustration that also includes a written explanation. Students may be unable to process the information quickly, because looking at the illustration and reading the text both place demands on the same sensory channel (vision). Mayer found that replacing the written explanation with an auditory narrative, which uses another sensory channel, is more effective. Another common way to overload attention is to give students two conflicting things to attend to at the same time (say, a transparency on the overhead and a verbal narrative that does not directly relate to the overhead). Students must figure out which sensory channel provides the essential information, and they may not always guess correctly. You can avoid cognitive overload by maintaining a reasonable pace in your presentation and by carefully coordinating your verbal instruction with any other media.