Blending Tradition with Innovation: Rethinking the Lecture in the Digital Age (part 2)
Summary
Advantages of Interactive Lectures: Highlights the superiority of interactive lectures over videos, emphasizing real-time engagement and structured learning.
Use of Technology: Details the use of classroom communication technologies like Socrative and Mentimeter to foster student participation and interaction.
Interactive Strategies: Discusses strategies for both student-to-staff and student-to-student interactions, including the use of real-time feedback and discussion.
Evidence-Based Approaches: References empirical evidence supporting the effectiveness of active learning and interactive techniques in enhancing lecture engagement.
Practical Applications: Offers examples of interactive activities and the author's experiences, underscoring the importance of engagement in lectures.
Implementation Tips: Provides guidance on preparing for and managing interactive lectures, including leveraging technology and setting expectations for student participation.
Previously
In the first part of this series I examined the evidence around the use of lectures. My conclusion was that the main advantage of lectures over the use of videos for delivering staff explanations of ideas was in the ability to gather a large group of students together. A secondary argument was that timetabled lectures introduce some structure and discipline into a student’s timetable.
If your lecture is just you talking, and students listening, with no interaction between anyone, then even with the argument for having some timetabled structure, you may as well have asked them to listen to some videos.
This article by Revell and Wainwright (2009) makes a similar point:
“Yet as large-group lectures are unlikely to be replaced any time soon, making them as participative as possible is one way to ensure that higher cognitive functions are at least partially acquired.”
In this essay I will explore evidence around specific strategies used to enhance lecture engagement, and propose some strategies that you can use in your lectures. In particular, what can you do to get the most out of having a large group in the room with you?
Active lectures: students to staff
There is a large literature on strategies to achieve an active lecture. Here I am going to focus on those that have some evidence in their favour, and those that do the most to make use of the social element of having a larger group present. Broad evidence for the benefit of an active learning style can be found in this meta study , though this approach has been criticised for defining active learning too widely, I will therefore look at some specific strategies throughout this article. A range of evidence around active lectures that help promote deep learning is also discussed here.
One of the primary advantages of a lecture over a video is that the teacher is there in the room to answer questions for clarification (White, 2010). Though developments in AI are making this point less important, for now this can still add value to the session. What can we then do to create an environment where students can ask the questions they need to, and get clear answers within the context of a lecture? Similarly the teacher may get an advantage from assessing student’s understanding, and being able to clarify points they are struggling with, how can the teacher make a good assessment of the state of the student’s knowledge?
Reliance on verbal methods or asking students to put their hands up, may have some success but will likely lead to either very little interaction at all, as students worry about getting the answer wrong, revealing personal views they do not want to share or are generally lacking confidence, or you may have domination of the session by a small number of students who are more confident. These outcomes are more likely in larger sessions, both due to the social dynamics and the practicalities in large lecture theatres with hundreds of students.
Therefore, the use of classroom communication technology has become common, and there is considerable literature around the use of this. Examples of specific products include Socrative and Mentimeter amongst many others. The aim of this technology is to allow all students to respond to questions, give views etc. This makes a session interactive in a straightforward way, students are expected to spend at least part of the session answering questions and providing data. Until more recently the use of such technology could be impractical as students needed a device that allowed them to respond, but now with the near ubiquitous presence of smartphones, tablets and laptops, this has become a much more practical method to use.
A summary of some evidence on use of classroom communication tech, mainly from within science is found here. The authors argue that there is a particularly strong case for the use of classroom questions as formative assessment, and that the encouragement of anonymity reduces the embarrassment of getting a wrong answer, but also encourages harder work if students know they are going wrong whilst others are right.
Dufresne (1996) focuses on one powerful element of using electronic systems, which is the ability to provide a distribution of data of how people responded to a question. Students therefore not only see a right answer (if relevant) but also how other people responded. This can in turn aid further activities that encourage learning, as we will see shortly.
A couple of implementations of this that I have used include asking questions on student preferences, for example around their willingness to accept certain bets. In this context there is no correct answer, but seeing the data on the range of different preferences can provoke interesting discussion. The nature of the technology used here can also be helpful as anonymity may encourage more people to respond accurately compared to other methods. These types of applications also work better where there is a larger group, as you will have a richer data set to discuss.
Another implementation is to ask questions that play on your knowledge of common mistakes that students make. Asking a question designed to elicit an incorrect response can provoke students to deeper consideration of the material, can set up further discussion and make an explanation of the correct answer seem more relevant. It can also encourage students that they are not on their own when they make mistakes or find things difficult.
At the highest level of implementation, a teacher should be willing to be flexible about what and how they teach in a lecture based on student understanding which you are assessing in the class. If you break for some questions and find the group seeming to struggle, then you may need to go back and explain something again or in a different way, or have another activity prepared to review that material again. Simply carrying on to the next set of points when the student’s lack of understanding of the previous points is visible to all will not be ideal.
A further discussion of the types of question that can be used in a lecture includes these suggestions from Beatty (2004):
Draw out background knowledge and beliefs
Make students aware of their own and other students' perception
Discovering points of confusion or misconception
Realising parallels or connections between different ideas
Elaborating the understanding of a concept
Green (2016) examines specific evidence for a performance improvement in economics classes due to use of Socrative – combining clicker questions in the lecture and one-minute paper at the end of a session (more on this shortly), finding an improvement in exam performance of 8% points on average with the use of this approach.
An important point also argued by Green is that the effort required is not too large. In fact, since this article was published, the design of questions for these types of activities has become substantially easier with the use of AI. You can both generate a set of generic questions on a topic very easily, but also go further and design questions specific to your session. Uploading your lecture slides or an overview of your session and ask for a set of questions and away you go. Following the advice above you can prompt the AI to focus on questions that generate data, or are more difficult, or whatever you want to achieve your objectives.
There is effort involved in changing the design of your lectures. As Green discussed, this comes partly from extra effort in managing the class and the psychological cost of giving up full control of the classroom, with students taking a more proactive role.
In summary, classroom interaction between students and staff can be greatly enhanced with the use of electronic methods for student responses. These can range from simple knowledge checks to more sophisticated gathering of student views and perceptions. In turn this can be incorporated into a traditional lecture in a fairly simple way, or in more advanced ways that allow for lectures to change direction based on the responses of the students.
Whilst some evidence is supportive of this greater interaction in turn having a positive effect on learning and academic performance, there is little doubt that if implemented well, you can certainly create a more engaging and enjoyable session for the students.
Advantages:
Introduce an active element in a simple way due to the many well-designed software options and student access to technology.
Can be tailored for different levels of interaction.
We can now use AI to do a lot of the work of question-and-answer design.
Encourage full class response in a way that is best for larger groups. Students who would not put their hands up or would feel uncomfortable giving verbal response can also be included
Evidence supports the effect of active learning and of some specific use cases as helping with student attainment.
Disadvantages:
It does require extra work, including in classroom management to make it work.
In particular, at the higher level of being prepared to run a flexible session that responds to the student data requires more planning and psychological preparation.
Active lectures: student to students
In this section I will analyse some options for creating interactive lectures that involve students interacting with other students. As you may imagine, the points already made about some of the difficulties in creating interactive sessions will be even stronger here, but there is a potential reward of creating valuable sessions for students, and ones that truly takes advantage of the social element of a larger group.
A first point to make, which applies to some extent to the previous discussion but more so to the techniques here, is the importance of setting the tone for the session. Students should have an expectation that they will be involved in the session, and you should explain what you are doing and why. This will be easier if done right from the start of the course. Doing several ‘traditional’ lectures then switching to a more interactive session might make it more difficult to get students interacting in the way that you want, and if the session goes well, they might question why they had so many traditional lectures to begin with! Many students are perfectly happy to be passive in a lecture, so you need to explain why you are doing what you are doing.
Classroom management will also be important. If you are going to get them moving around, talking etc. Then need to be able to bring them back to the more standard lecture environment and collate the work or responses they have been working on. Whilst I believe there can be a good upside to an interactive lecture, if implemented poorly, there can certainly be a downside as well. The traditional lecture comes with few risks in comparison, but I believe the lack of learning that can take place in those sessions makes the risk worthwhile.
Now let’s look at some examples of student-to-student interaction in a lecture, with a focus on activities that get the most from large groups. Much of this list is drawn from this excellent article that is well worth your time to review in full.
Brainstorming
Students can be given a few minutes to discuss ideas in groups. Depending on how your group are physically spread within the lecture hall you could give them a minute to move around and encourage them to interact with people around them. The brainstorming session will be based on ideas that you have discussed in the previous part of the lecture, you could ask them to think about solutions to a problem, some analysis of a policy, or the meaning of some data. The students could keep their answers to themselves to compare them with some points you will then make, or could share their suggestions, possibly using electronic methods discussed in the first section.
Think-pair-share
Give them a question they consider alone, then discuss it with a neighbour before settling on a final answer. Again, this can be combined with the methods discussed earlier.
One minute write
Asks students to produce a written response to a question in a minute. This on its own is not a social task, but when combined with electronic sharing, it will give a variety of responses that students can engage with. It could be combined with Brainstorming and with think-pair-share, students write up their ideas in a group, or after comparison with their neighbour for example.
Experiments
These will not work for every discipline, but in my discipline of economics there are a range of experiments and games that can be used with students. Ones I have used include simple ones where students are asked to consider their preference from a choice, then asked a similar question later in the lecture that is framed in a slightly different way to reveal Behavioural biases. More involved experiments may need props like cards or pretend money and have students moving around the lecture hall to simulate a market for example.
Divide the class into four groups – ‘questioners’ (must ask question about material), ‘examplers’ (provide an example) - divergent thinkers (disagree with some point from the lecture) - ‘agreers’ (explain a point from lecture they agree with). This can be done in groups.
Pass the pointer
Present a complex image or diagram and pass the laser pointer to students to explain elements of it, or ask questions about bits they do not understand.
These are just some of the ideas out there. Before concluding with some advantages and disadvantages of this approach it is worth returning to the main other advantage of lectures, that of discipline.
Many of the techniques discussed here and in the source material, could also work with videos (and I would recommend including interactive elements in videos as well). However, there will be a temptation to skip interactive questions, not think hard about them and generally engage less in the comfort of your own space, compared to when sharing a social experience with a group of your peers.
This is supported by evidence from Gysbers et al (2011) who find that students say they attend lectures because of discipline and because of the social element, whereas videos may predispose students to procrastination. Similarly Loughlin and Lindberg-Sand (2022) find that students say they attend lectures for the structure and the support of peer networks that develop from these sessions.
Advantages:
Encouragement of deeper learning compared to passive ‘traditional’ lectures.
A range of options available that can make each session unique and allow the session to be tailored to the topic material.
Maximise the advantages of having a social experience with a large group.
Ensure students take part in interactive elements in a way that cannot be ensured with a video.
Disadvantages:
Running an interactive lecture may involve more preparation and organisation, both for the staff member and for the students.
Practical Tips
Explore the different electronic systems available to you, be this Mentimeter, Socrative, Microsoft forms, Padlet or another software used by your university. Think about how to use these in your sessions, use AI to help you design appropriate questions you can use.
Every lecture should have something where the students do something, never have entirely passive session. Make it clear to students why you are doing it, ideally as early in the course as possible.
If you have never seen a session like this run before, then seek out some staff who might be doing this and attend their lecture. Does your institution have staff training or other guidance. If you use these methods, can you mentor or guide those less experienced?
You may find that adapting your lecture means that you ‘cover less’. To a large degree this is an illusion because your traditional lecture probably wasn’t being remembered very well by the students anyway, but you will have to think about what points you will still include in your lecture. As quoted here: “Mazur (1997) recommends that the lecturer save time by only going over more difficult and important material rather than duplicating the coverage of the textbook.”
Good luck with your engaging lectures! In my next two lectures I will first be using a quiz through the Vevox platform to assess student’s understanding of earlier material from the course, and then gather their ideas from a brainstorming session. In the second lecture I will be using a group brainstorming session and a version of the ‘think pair share activity.
Next in this series I will look at using AI to help design the lectures given what I have discussed in the first two parts.
