Lecture

For many teachers, lecture seems to be the best way to convey information. With some additions, lecturing can be an effective way of teaching.

Lectures can be engaging to students under a number of circumstances such as when the lecturer uses high quality delivery techniques such as a clear speaking voice, narrative examples, and a discernible organizational scheme such that students can anticipate what topics are likely to come next.

In addition to high quality lecturing practices, certain "add ins" will help students to understand the material and to be somewhat independent in learning it. Here are some possibilities:

Video lectures and post them on Blackboard. A departmental work study student or a regular student in your class can help with the process of setting up a video camera, doing minor editing, and posting the resulting work. If you use the wiki tool in Blackboard, students should be able to upload video files. Videos of lectures offer students opportunities to review the material and get it repeated as often as necessary.

Put presentations (e.g., power point or Prezis) on Blackboard. As with having videos online, this will help students to review material as often as they need it.

Ensure that the essence of your material is presented in both sound and visual formats (audible lecture plus power point, for example) so that students have more of a chance of understanding your message.

Where possible there is some element to the course that provides a way to actually use the information, such as a lab (in the sciences) or scholarly work (in humanities). This application of the information makes lectures more meaningful.

Consider creating "lecture notes," a common practice in medical and veterinary colleges. These outlines of your lectures can be in the form of electronic files that allow students to add their own observations and thoughts as they work on learning the material.

Digital versions of texts (e.g., the textbook or various articles) are often available from the publisher or through library databases. If you put these online, then it will make meeting legal mandates for information accessibility much easier. There are many services such as Vozme-- [] --that can take digital files and turn them into speech. These services use computer-generated voices as the readers, so developing an audio file is only a matter of dropping written text into their text boxes.

Any digital text can become audible through this type of service; it can therefore be used for test directions or even test questions where required.

There are websites on just about any possible topic, so you can supplement the information provided by you and/or textbooks and readings with these sites. They can offer the kind of alternative explanation that will serve the educational needs of your students.

In addition to websites in English, there are websites in many different languages that explain the same concepts. Again, the use of these websites can help you meet your legal obligations.

Assessment The typical way of assessing understanding of lecture material is through a test that might be multiple choice and/or essay. In addition to this way of assessment, some teachers have explored having the students take their knowledge and apply it. This includes doing writing projects that potentially reach a world-wide audience such as having students create articles suitable for Wikipedia or some other informational site. It also could include using some of the new multimedia possibilities for representing their ability to apply classroom information to a novel situation. An example of this would be http://prezi.com. Finally, when students are able to represent their skills at using and applying information, such as in situations they are likely to encounter in job situations, they get a head start on the kinds of competencies that are expected of college graduates; in the long range this helps to develop Capital University's reputation and cachet.