Is the lecture dead? How do I keep my students engaged?

The lecture isn’t dead and still can be the most effective way to convey basic knowledge, communicate a professors’ intrinsic interest in a subject, and quickly clarify common misconceptions. With that said, students’ expectations for what happens within the four walls of the classroom and best teaching practices for developing deep, meaningful learning what are evolving. It is commonly cited that students’ attention span during lecture ranges between 10 and 20 minutes (Johnstone & Percival, 1978; for review see Wilson & Korn, 2007) with the trend likely moving toward the shorter end of that spectrum (Svinicki & McKeachie, 2011). In addition, research suggests students retain 70% of what is said in the first 10 minutes of a lecture, but only 20% in the last 10 minutes (Meyers & Jones, 1993).  While these numbers are not deterministic, there are two approaches faculty can take to engage students more readily in large lecture course:

1) Improve lecturing skills and course organization.

Latte-level:

Double Espresso-level:

Latte-level:

• Implement quick interactive techniques such as think/pair/share or iClicker questions.

Macchiato-level:

• Investigate and implement simple “Change Up” strategies.
• Implement collaborative learning activities and peer instruction activities such as jigsaw, base groups (also here), and constructive controversy.
• Implement problem-based learning activities.
• Watch faculty videos on engagement techniques.

Double Espresso-level:

• Offload some of your lectures for viewing online outside of class and implement more active learning techniques during in-class time (popularly called “flipping” your class).
  • See one CU professors’ foray into “flipping” her class.
  • Review some of the pitfalls associated with the flipped approach.
• Implement backchannel discussions (see Derek Bruff’s backchannel resources) using technologies such as Twitter, Polleverywhere, and TodaysMeet.
• “Gamify” your course.