From
the Editor: Jesse Pittsley
How to Create Course Lessons,
Not Lectures!
After ten years of post-secondary
education I have become firmly convinced that college teaching is not always
easy. It takes more preparation that most would think. But,
it is apparent from many years as a student that not all professors take
the job of teaching as serious as they should. In fact, I am equally
convinced that few college professors critically examine teaching.
It appears that many think the primary role of their occupation is to simply
present information. As a result, those who posses the greatest amounts
of charisma and humor are considered “great” teachers. The rest are
considered functional employees of the institution. Only a few of
the professors I have taken courses from have demonstrated the desire to
properly design lessons and vary their teaching and evaluation techniques.
Furthermore, only a few appear to construct their classes based upon a
personal educational philosophy. Most use teaching methods that years
of tradition have thoughtlessly placed upon them. Consequently, the
typical 40 hour lectures divided into 16 weeks of 50 minute class periods,
semester after semester have become clones of information pattering like
water from a leaky roof on top an ivory tower.
With respect for the teachers who
are dedicated to teaching, I should state that I am a new and developing
educator. Due to my youth and inexperience, my technique is rough,
jagged, and often void of good rhythm. Fortunately, I see hope and
potential for becoming a good teacher. The best teachers are those
who constantly think critically about education. They build courses
and class sessions that are based on strong philosophical foundations and
sound analysis of how people are motivated to learn. I have tried
to mask this trait of many of my good teachers. I’ve examine things
like instructional techniques, evaluation methods, learning styles, and
the relationships between motivation and different personality temperaments
to make my teaching better. Although it is obvious that my teaching
is rough around the edges and there is still room for fine tuning, it has
a conceptual foundation and my techniques have layers of fundamentally
solid information under them.
My specific lesson structure is
not necessarily original, but it is one example of an attempt to teach
well. Many others have mastered different approaches that have proven
successful. My approach is not the single answer, and I would enjoy
reading about “why” and “how” other teachers use their particular method(s).
This is simply the product I’ve created through my analysis of how people
are best inspired to learn. The purpose of this essay is to
outline and describe how I create a lesson. Each section will
describe a specific phase of a session, the purpose behind the phase, and
its potential advantages and drawbacks.
Create Lessons
First, I see class sessions as lessons.
A lecture is something altogether different. When developing a course,
I constantly keep in mind the phrase, “create lessons not lectures”.
Lessons have introductions, opportunities for practice, evaluations, and
closure. Furthermore, the lessons I use involve several switches
in emphasis away from the professor to the students. Higher education
is full of professors that are fixated on engorging class periods with
information. These individuals are often obsessed with conveying
this information through the same mode, the lecture. This doesn’t
mean that a lecture is completely bad. It is a matter of “time”.
For example, when I attend a class that involves a lecture longer than
30 minutes, I think to myself, “Does this individual honestly think people
are listening?”
Before starting graduate work I was
the typical undergraduate student. Class periods involved zoning
in and out of concentration throughout the semester. I would concentrate
fairly well during the first 15 minutes of class. I was involved
with examining each statement. I took notes, and I even asked questions
to cross-examine the teacher. But, during the next 15 minutes or
so, I would drift to unrelated topics. Occasionally I would return
to concentrate on what the teacher was saying. In actuality, I probably
would spend less than 50% of the class period paying attention. Later,
in graduate school, I got better. The topics were more related to
my interests, and I had matured somewhat. Today, I can honestly say
that I can focus through almost 40 minutes of a good lecture. Unfortunately,
this is a best case scenario. If my interest declines or if I become
saturated with too many classes, especially the seemingly endless stream
of power point slides, it is all just about a complete waste of time.
Teaching like a Coach!
Like most students, my concentration
in class improves when the teacher creates sessions that encourage active
learning. Although there are many ways to encourage active learning,
I learn best when the teacher creates lessons, not lectures. Most
students tend to agree as well. Great lessons are like great practice
sessions for athletic teams. Practices usually start immediately
with the athletes engaged in some form of short but involved activity.
The purpose of the activity is to reinforce previously taught material
and to encourage the athletes to focus on the practice. The activity
is then followed by the coach quickly bringing closure, which is then followed
by new material. After the presenting the material, the athletes are given
an opportunity to apply and practice. This requires small groups
working together. The problem is quickly solved, using past and present
experience with a distinct purpose. Then, the coach brings the group
together for an evaluation of the performance. This cycle of presentation,
practice, and evaluation is repeated until the practice is brought to closure
with a summary of the material and an explanation of what must occur before
the next practice.
The complete cycle of introduction,
presentation of new material, evaluation, and closure is repeated everyday
in athletics. It is through this process that thousands of professional
and amateur athletes learn complex offensive and defensive schemes and
strategies for their respective sports. I find it interesting that
many college teachers don’t see the difference between creating lessons
and creating lectures. Coaches seem to understand this point, and
they seem to have mastered it for decades. The important point of
this essay is that creating an active environment is extremely beneficial
to teaching. Hence, teachers ought to create classroom and/or laboratory
situations where students work to stay with the lesson, its content, and
the applications. Good practices in athletics, much like music or
art, are examples of good classroom teaching. Practices are constantly
comprised of individuals, small groups, and team work. Shouldn’t
classroom activity consist of the same? Also, practices involve reinforcement,
evaluation, specific feedback, and required performance by each participant.
Again, shouldn’t students be taught using similar procedures?
Imagine a basketball practice where
the coach lectured the entire session. No matter how motivated the
athletes were to succeed, eventually their concentration would ebb away.
Additionally, the athletes would have no practice time to develop skills
associated with the new information. As a result, winning would only
occur by talent, outside effort by individual athletes and, perhaps, by
chance. Personally, I would not place my hope in the latter, but
this is exactly what many college professors seem to do. Many of
the classroom sessions I have encountered in higher academia have been
prime examples of very bad practices. If the college teachers were
coaches, they would be fired immediately. Imagine what might happen
if the teachers viewed themselves as coaches. Further, imagine how
students might get involved if their teachers were to prepare then for
an academic competition. Still further, imagine what would happen
if teachers cycled through the phases of information presentation, practice,
and evaluation during each lesson. If all of this were true, I’d
argue learning in higher education would change.
A Typical Lesson: Presented as
Food for Thought
I start each class with a short
quiz. The quizzes are never longer than six items and never very
complicated questions. I use the quiz to reinforce what has been
taught over the past couple lessons and to “jump-start” students into thinking
actively during the class. I hand out the quiz at the beginning of
class. The students have five minutes (exactly 300 seconds) to complete
the quiz. Afterwards, I go over the answers and entertain questions
and concerns. The class is now ready to absorb new material.
I proceed with about a 20-minute “lecture”. The content follows notes
previously given to the students as a course packet. After the lecture,
I propose a problem that requires the use of the information just presented.
To respond to the problem, students are encouraged to work in pairs for
about five minutes. The class is asked to consider a few selected
responses. I may also ask for a written response. Then, I proceed
to new information for about ten minutes followed by a closing assignment
that the students complete individually or in pairs during the last few
minutes of class. Finally, the students are reminded to study
for the next quiz and they go on their way. Overall, it’s a full 50 minutes
with roughly 30 minutes of new material.
Description of the Different Components
of the Lesson
There are several points to the
different components of the lesson that I would like to further discuss.
The following subsections describe the different phases of the lesson format.
Here, I will examine the guidelines, rationale, and advantages to each
phase of the lesson.
The Quiz
The daily quiz serves several educational
purposes. First, since each quiz starts immediately and only last
five minutes, it encourages students to attend the sessions promptly. As
a result, I rarely have tardy students. Prior to my doctorate work,
I was a chronically tardy student. Frankly, I didn’t think it bothered
anybody. After teaching a few classes, I learned how much teaching
rhythm I lost when students showed up to class late.
Second, the quiz reinforces the basic
knowledge content of the course. The questions of the quiz are not
difficult and, generally, only involve the first two levels of Blooms Taxonomy
(knowledge and understanding). They are usually short and designed
to inform students about the core principles of the course. The questions
range from: “List two factors that control preload, and how does preload
influence end-diastolic volume?” to “what is the primary role of insulin?”
The questions are usually written to require a short-answer response.
Also, often times, I repeat some of the questions on mid-term and final
examinations that may serve to enhance the students’ final grade.
A coaching mentor of some years ago
would preach: “Don’t forget athletes need their EDDs!” In other
words, during every practice, it was important that athletes performed
the “Every Day Drills” to keep basic knowledge and skills sharp and in
the forefront of their minds. Much like musicians practicing scales
each session, I’ve tried to implement EDDs into my courses to improve the
students’ academic performance. Each day, the quiz requires the students
to answer several basic knowledge questions from the field of exercise
physiology. Later, I may ask the same question a couple times over
the course of few weeks to reinforce its importance. Over the course
of a semester, the students encounter roughly 50 consistently reinforced
concepts that I hope (i.e., expect) will remain an accessible part of their
knowledge base.
Third, the quiz is used to encourage
students to study between class sessions. From personal experience,
I rarely studied as an undergraduate student. Unless major tests or project
due dates were quickly approaching (or had already passed!), I didn’t feel
the need to learn course material. Like many students during that
phase of the educational process, I survived each of my five courses per
semester by living from test to test, putting out the brightest fire before
it hopefully became to hot. Although I understand many students are
far more disciplined than I was then, it is not the teacher’s role to fix
the students who are not broken. Disciplined students will study
and perform regardless of the number of quizzes or major tests. Their
success is pretty much assumed. They are not part of my techniques
per se. My role is to help motivate the students who lack the
maturation and/or study skills to grasp the course content. My desire,
therefore, is to raise their performance through repetitive external reinforcement
so they have a fighting chance against their more diligent peers.
The Lecture
Clearly, there are many successful
college teachers who prefer to lecture and/or mix other aspects of teaching
with primarily the lecture approach to getting across course content.
My purpose with this brief article is not to tell college teachers how
they should teach, but to share my views regarding teaching. As a
result, this section will not discuss lecturing, but will actually discuss
what might accompany the lecture. To begin with, I should point out
that my students always have my notes. I don’t require students to
write what I say while I am speaking. Should they want to write something
down, I leave space on the typed notes just encase. Seldom, do I
say anything that is so important that necessitates word for word replication
of classroom content. There are better ways to encourage students
to stay active during class. Teachers are supposed to promote
learning, not guessing and game playing. I have learned that students
will struggle only so much before their interest wanes. Since students
are taking several courses and time is limited, college teachers should
be tactful and understanding in what they ask of students.
Small Group Problem Solving
The “class problem-solving tasks”
have four purposes. The first purpose is to force me (the teacher)
to stop talking. Although it varies among students, I think that
the average attention span for a lecture is 15 to 20 minutes. After
this, most students begin to drift and their retention declines.
The second purpose is to use the problem-solving approach to switch teaching
modes and, thus provide students a change in pace. This phase encourages
students to engage in higher-order thought about the material that has
just been presented. To do this, I usually present tasks that combine
several concepts and steps. Word problems and case studies are ideal.
I have also asked students to summarize figures or tables direct from published
articles. This is great practice for dissecting publications and
improving the students’ ability to think critically and systematically.
Overall, the possibilities are endless when planning this phase of the
lesson. The only requirement is the disciplined approach to the questions.
Students need to understand that their job is to analyze, evaluate, and
logically explain their responses. Each problem solving session involves
the students breaking into pairs while I place pre-written question on
a Power Point slide. The students then use four to five minutes to
develop a written response.
The third purpose is: I spend
a couple minutes with the class asking students to offer their responses.
To do this, I ask for volunteer and never call directly on students, especially
if it is the first response disclosed to the class. As a student,
I am a rather outward and aggressive person in class. I enjoy the cross
examination between the teacher and my peers. But, I’ve found this
enjoyment to be rarely reciprocated. After teaching a few courses,
I’ve learned few students enjoy or even respond in a positive manner to
being placed “on the spot” in front of class. Furthermore, many students
require slightly more processing time than the quick-speaking and often
tactless gunslingers like me. As a result, after having several very
sharp and introverted students, I’ve grown more sympathetic to those who
actually academically aim before shooting. Therefore, to ease the
pressure off students, I require the groups to write a quick response to
the questions. By requiring something in writing, I feel this helps
the more introverted students feel more confident when the class begins
to exchange answers.
The fourth purpose of this quick
five minutes is to say hello to some of the students in the class.
This is a great opportunity to make eye contact, pat the students on the
shoulder, and generally improve the proximities between myself and the
students. I feel this helps me to personalize their learning and
build rapport. I also make an effort to start class in different
parts of the classroom each time I move my way through class in order to
balance the attention to different students. Occasionally, I ask
students about their performance on the quiz. Quiz grades are cumulative
in each course I teach. As a result, I usually have a general idea
of how well each student is doing and the students are often very conscious
of how they are performing. When time permits, I give a framed award
for the “quiz champion” of the course. Remember, I see students
as part of a team that I coach. I value the performance of each student.
I want each student to know that I am conscious of their work and participation,
and that I care about his or her daily performance in class. I see
poor student performance as a reflection of my teaching, and I want them
to understand that I sincerely care about them.
Closure
After the small group session is
over, I lecture for ten minutes and, then, I offer one more question to
the class. After the class completes the problem, I bring the class
to close with a summary statement(s) and focus the students to study certain
content areas for the next quiz. I try to end class exactly
at its assigned time and rarely allow myself to run over. I have
a friend who often lectures beyond the allotted class time. He defends
himself by stating, “If I have more material, I will lecture longer.”
I usually counter with, “If you have more material, you should rewrite
your lecture.” Although this is my opinion (and he has the right
to teach his class the way he wants to), I feel it is rude to teach longer
than the scheduled time. If classes need to be longer, then the best
thing to do is schedule the time accordingly.
Potential Drawbacks
Every method of teaching has advantages
and disadvantages. I’ve been fortunate to have been taught by great
lecturers and also by those who were just as effective while only speaking
selectively. For my personal teaching approach, a merge of the two
styles is most appropriate. However, like any teaching method, it
merits certain concerns. For example, my specific lesson design does
not allow for the teacher to cover the same amount of material as when
lecturing. When educators feel the need to present a lot of material,
they rightfully turn to a lecture format. Any deviation from a lecture
to a small-group risks the potential of less content being presented.
This is why some of my colleagues may view my lesson design with some concern
for content. Another warning for those using this lesson structure
is that the design is only for educators who are very good at time management.
Teachers manipulate time to make classes work. If it is difficult
to keeping on schedule, being easily swept away by questions and stories,
this format will fail quickly and the class drifts too long. This
will hurt the remaining stages of the lesson. I understand it is
easy to get caught up in chatting with the students or in the momentum
of the lecture itself.
Summary
There are many effective teachers
with different personalities. Sound teaching methods and lesson designs
can help a variety of temperaments succeed in the classroom. Good
teaching is not defined by being funny, charismatic, prestigious, or charming,
although each may be helpful from to time. Good teaching is the product
of a well-thought system and a tremendous caring for the students.
At the present time, I am not necessarily a good educator. I need
several years of refinement and classroom experience before course content
begins to flow like I envision it should. I also understand it will
take time and effort to convince students that this system can be successful.
But, unlike some of my colleagues, I hold to the vision that my teaching
should extend beyond the notion of standing up and speaking well.
I see the lessons I’ve design as active balances between lecture and group
work with frequent opportunities for students to practice and perform.
Hopefully, with some luck, good guidance, and a lot of support, my philosophy
of teaching will continue to take a better form and I will, therefore,
consistently implement successful lessons to educate students.