A Work Conference on Fun and Efficient Lecturing Strategies
I attended a conference 2 days ago at work and witnessed what I’d like to describe as the best presentation I’ve ever seen. The presentation was delivered by David Morton, A Professor at the University of Utah School of Medicine and was focused on better approaches to lecturing/teaching students at the Medical School.
The traditional method of teaching (around here) is more tailored towards preparing students for exam. It doesn’t really care whether the teaching process is fun or not.
At the conference, we talked about the need to spice the learning process up for students to make it more enjoyable for them. Likening teaching to soccer.
The classroom is the field, we (lecturers) are coaches and students are players. The assumption that lecturers mostly make when they’re teaching is that just because they said something in class, the student automatically learns it. Looking at it in the perspective of soccer, it’s like a coach assuming that just because he taught players how to kick a ball, they now know how to kick a ball. They don’t. They have the information alright, but until you make them actually kick the ball, the information is all they have.
The curse of knowledge
Another assumption that lecturers make is as a really of something we could call the curse of knowledge. Lecturers have become so conversant with the courses they teach that they forget there was a time when they didn’t know as much as they did. They forget what it feels like to not know, and so because of that, they don’t think the concepts they’re explaining in class is any more complex than riding a bicycle. But the students don’t. And until you put yourself back in the shoes of a student once more, the knowledge you already have will curse you to understand their position as students.
Think, Pair, Share
This teaching method basically incorporates the three things outlined here. It’s another method that we can adopt to make things more fun in the classroom. And the best thing about this method is that it’s not limited by class size.
Think…
This part of the process involves showing students visual images of whatever you’ll be discussing, and giving them time to process what they’re looking at.
As an illustration in our discussion, we projected a collage on the board. The collage contained about 10 images, 5 on top and the rest down. The task was to map each image on the top to another on the bottom. There was no instruction on what related the two sets of images, so that’s something we had to figure out ourselves. To give you more context and a better understanding, I’ll tell you what some of the images were.
On the top, we had images of a hand holding a ring with elvish markings on the ring, a picture of james bond, a red heel, and a martini.
On the bottom, there was a picture of Frodo (from Lord Of The Rings), a picture of a woman dressed with a pink lipstick,
Pair….
After giving us a visual, we were asked to turn to the person on our right, and
Share….
What we think of the task at hand. Tell them what you think should map to what and why.
I was honestly was a littled disappointed in myself that I didn’t get the LOTR reference, cos I like to pride myself as someone with a very recall memory when it comes to movies. I’ll leave the rest up to you to decipher.
This might be a a little difficult to do since it’s abstract for you, but I want you to try to do the mappings yourself from the information I just gave you.
Goldilocks Bear
The “Just right” metric. What this principle basically suggests it that lecturers should be delivered in a way that they’re not too difficult to understand and not too easy to bore students. And this already makes a lot of sense on it’s own, right?
I learnt a great deal from the conference yesterday. It changed my mind on a lot of things, and threw more light on ideas I was already thinking about myself.
The traditional methods of teaching are old-fashioned and take the fun out of learning. It’s up to us to change the narrative by playing soccer with students even in courses like Medicine.
The pictures here are not from the particular conference discussed in this post as I was sitting in a pretty exposed spot and couldn’t take any photos.
Some students are really facing a lot of challenges in school because some lecturers forget that every student has his limit.
Maybe, lecturers especially those in Ghana need to be oriented again on how to lecture their students because some students come to class and leave with little or no understanding of what’s being taught.
Yeah, maybe more of these conferences need to be organized all over Ghana so that more lecturers get the exposure to these new teaching strategies.
That’s very true. Let’s hope our leaders see the need for change and work towards it.
Personally, I have experienced students like myself especially my course mates including myself complaining about lecturers and their style of teaching. At times we go to them personally to voice out our problems and they promise to do better but at the end of the day it’s the same old story.
I guess some of them are so used to reading to us instead of lecturing. I just hope things get better with time.
Back on campus, I've had one or two of such experiences myself. But considering that I wasn't a regular at lectures most of the time, I didn't really care much. I hope things change over time though. Maybe old dogs can learn new tricks eventually.
These lecturers don’t look like they’re ready to learn new tricks.😅
Tell me about it. The current teaching methods ae just so old fashioned and the lecturers don't give a fluff. Moreover, their job is just to teach. Right
The guest speaker shared very interesting teaching methods which could actually enable students learn faster and at the same time recall what they learnt.
a hand holding a ring with elvish markings on the ring would pair with a picture of Frodo (from Lord Of The Rings)
a picture of james bond would pair with a martini
a red heel would pair with a picture of a woman dressed with a pink lipstic
I kinda mixed everything up tho but there you go:)
You actually got all the pairings right. Great job! I didn't get the James Bond part right because even though I've heard the name, I didn't know much about James Bond. The red heel with the lipstick was easy erh:)
Okay, that's a shocker. Didn't think i'd get any. Yeah, the heels and lipstick pair was easy😅
This we have in common. don't know much about the guy.
Oh frr? I thought you'd be more confident of your pairs. They're sure bangers.😂
Mmm now I'm curious the reasoning behind his pairing.🤔
Till this moment, I do not still know how I made those pairs but I guess I like puzzles/ brain teasers after all
from what I've heard, he's into action movies but not the type of "De rok or Statham" action. His actions are more classy and stuff. In all his classiness, it's only right if he is paired with a martini.
Mmm good thinking. Classy = martini.😂
Maybe this week's Neoxian City game should be a puzzles game. Haha thanks for the inspiration.
The pleasure is all mine.
Well can you blame the lecturers sometimes. In my years of stay in the university I’ve come to the conclusion that at times the lecturer is teaching or giving out information the same way he was taught.
What do you think?
As we learn in the same way we will eventually teach the same way if we become lecturers.
At times I think some lecturers don’t know much either 😂. Or they are too busy to even care about your questions.
Yeah we actually covered this in our discussion too, I guess I just forgot to add it. A lot of the older lecturers that were there admitted this and promised to try to more flexible.
As for knowing much, I think they do know much. Some of them just have problems teaching what they know. Lecturing is in two parts - knowing what you're lecturing and knowing how to get students to understand what you're lecturing. Most lecturing either suck at the latter, or just don't care enough about it.
Oh am glad some of that accepted it. Am surprised they did accept it though so it means they will change. If they don’t change their ways it means we will continue to pass through this endless pain forever.
Well I admit am wrong for saying they don’t know much 😂. It’s just their way of giving out information.
You get into school and find the same lecturers that taught your father and uncles and all still teaching you with probably the same note of lesson. No change. No advancement. So we're basically running around a circles.
I really hope that modernization finds its way into the education sector.
This cracked me up😂, but it's very true. In school, we had some lecturers who before you even started the course, students already had the handout. Because he's been using the same handout for YEARS! The good thing about lecturers like this is that they also repeat the same set of pass questions, so it's easy to pass their courses.
Yeah I hope the old dogs try to evolve with the system and try to incorporate and implement some of these better strategies. It'll be good for both them and students. Thanks for passing by, love:)
Yeah, it's easy to pass the courses. So we can't have our cake an eat it. Lol
Anyways, it was nice learning from you. You really do get around and that's nice. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.🤗
You are right , the traditional means of lectures are old-fashioned. I think some of our lecturers are so lazy. They need to travel abroad and learn more about lecturing.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful piece, you are amazing !!
Addressing teaching methods is something all kinds of schools should look Into, believe me alot of people out there fail exams purposely because they can't assimilate what the teacher is teaching them.
You can just see a teacher that ought to be using a demonstration method for his or her lecture but will decided to use lecturing method. I believe the course we need to teach will explain better the kinds of methods and styles we will use for them. But teachers refused to know this.
To buttress your point I have a particular teacher that always do as if he knows everything in class , imagine you are using a full lecturing method for someone that is into sport full time instead of less lecture and full practicals . I won't blame anyone in that school if they can't even play a common basketball 🏀 because they hardly teach them how to play. All they give is note and you expect me to be able to put what I write in practice. Dang it's just so annoying but what will you do as a students? We keep moving anyways.
I love your write thanks for sharing
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