Tuesday
in class, we learned about growth=happiness, questioning, and lecturing. All
points are very important in a classroom. However, the portion of class that I
enjoyed and benefitted most from was when we learned how to lecture.
Lecturing
is something that did not seem easy to do. I have been very nervous to lecture
in the future and had not learned how to do it in past education classes. In
most of my classes, a lecture is class every day. I’ve probably sat through
every lecture one could imagine. Some have been very exciting and informative
while others have been extremely boring and dreadful. Lecturing is something I
plan on doing when I have my own classroom. I mean in order to have a class
that will fulfill all learning styles I definitely think it is necessary. I
also think that although activities are fun for class, there needs to be
variety in how class will go to cater to every learning style and learning the
correct way to lecture can make these classes fun as well.
Some
very important points I learned from Dr. Horwitz and her lesson on learning how to
lecture was that a lecture shouldn’t be longer than 18 minutes. This is
something I never knew but can definitely see how it is important because after
that much information students tend to not listen as attentively. It is
something I notice in my own classes now. I stop listening after a part of
lecture. This means I would have to break up my class with some lecture, and
maybe a small activity, worksheet, etc. for the other part of class. Another key
point I learned was giving time for students to take notes. This is something I
can see myself struggling with at first because I picture standing in front of
the class and not speaking could seem awkward but it is something that is
essential when lecturing because people need time to take notes. There’s
nothing worse than when I am in a lecture and the professor goes so fast that I
can’t keep up with writing and next thing I know my notes don’t make sense and
the lecture was basically useless. I never want this to happen in my class. For
a portion of my lesson that I will be teaching in CF I have planned a short
lecture to introduce the topic and I think this will be the first time I will
be stopping and giving the students time to write notes.
Other
important points about lecturing that I knew but was reassured with was that
the tone of my voice cannot be monotone. I have to sound like I actually like what
I’m talking about to get students attention. If I have a power point
presentation I shouldn’t write everything I will be saying and it is also
useful to provide students handouts to fill out as I am presenting. Here is a
link to a site I found that provides some good strategies for lecturing in a
classroom that is similar to some strategies learned in class but has some
others as well: link!
This portion of
class really helped me figure out how to lecture and will be something I use in
the near future. After my lesson I will be reflecting back and thinking what
strategies I used and how I can make it better for next time as well.
Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteI know what you mean regarding sitting through every kind of lecture you could imagine. Over time I think I've become pretty efficient at distilling the essence of even the longest, most boring lecture. However, it took me years of sitting through lectures, sometimes half-asleep or lost in daydream land and not absorbing anything, before I learned how to do that! I think it's important to take your time like you mentioned so that students have time to take notes, but I think we probably have to teach students how to take effective notes from a lecture as well. That was another thing that I learned from Dr. H's lesson; having a vague or disorganized handout for note taking can potentially be worse than not having a handout at all!