Tips for Organizing Effective Lectures

This excerpt is from Teaching Tips: A Guidebook for the Beginning Teacher. In its eighth edition, Bill McKeachie’s handbook has great ideas for beginning and experienced faculty.

In thinking about lecture organization, most teachers think first about the structure of the subject matter, then try to organize the content in some logical fashion, such as building from specifics to generalization or deriving specific implication from general principles.

Some common organizing principles used by lecturers are: cause to effect; time sequence (for example, stories); parallel organization such as phenomena to theory to evidence; problem to solution; pro vs. con to resolution; familiar to unfamiliar; and concept to application.

Leith (1977) has suggested that different subjects are basically different in the ways in which progress is made in the field. Some subjects are organized in a linear or hierarchical fashion in which one concept builds upon a preceding one. In such subjects one must follow a particular sequence of ideas in order to reach a sophisticated level. Other subject matters are organized more nearly in the manner of a spiral or helix in which the path from one level to the next is not linear but rather depends upon accumulating a number of related ideas before the next level can be achieved; and any of the related ideas at one level need not precede other ideas at that level. Still other subject matters are organized in the fashion of networks in which one may start at different points of the network and go in various directions. One may build up a network equally well by starting at any one of the number of places and proceeding through a variety of sequences to arrive at comprehension of the subject matter.

The logical structure of one’s subject should be one factor determining the lecture organizing, but equally important is the cognitive structure in the students’ minds. If we are to teach our students effectively, we need to bridge the gap between the structure in the subject matter and structure in the students’ minds. As is indicated in all of the chapters in this book, the learner’s mind is not tabula rasa. The teacher is not making impression on a blank slate. Rather our task in teaching is to recognize existing student cognitive structures, then to add new dimensions or new features to existing structures. Thus the organization of the lecture needs to take account of the students’ existing knowledge and expectations as well as the structure of the subject matter.

The Introduction
One suggestion for organization is that the introduction of the lecture should point to a gap in the student’s existing cognitive structure or should challenge or raise a question about something in the student’s existing method of organizing material in order to arouse curiosity (Berlyne 1954). There is a good deal of research on the role of prequestions in directing attention to features of written texts. Prequestions in the introduction of a lecture may help students to discriminate between more and less important features of lectures. For example, before a lecture on cognitive changes in aging, I ask, “Do you get more or less intelligent as you get older?” “What is a fair test of intelligence for older people?” Such questions may also help to create expectations which will enable the students to allocate their information processing capacity more effectively. If students know what they are expected to learn from a lecture, they learn more of that material (sometimes at the expense of other material, Royer 1977).

Body of the Lecture
In organizing the body of the lecture, the most common error is probably that of trying to include too much. As we have stressed throughout this chapter, students’ information-processing capacities are limited, and a lecturer who is expert in the field is likely to overestimate the students’ ability to grasp large blocks of material and to see relationships. An explanation that would be perfect for advanced students may be incomprehensible to beginning students. Lecturers very often overload the students’ information processing capacity so that they become less able to understand than if fewer points had been presented. David Katz (1950), a pioneer Gestalt psychologist, called this phenomenon “mental dazzle.” He suggested that just as too much light causes our eyes to be dazzled so that we cannot see anything, so too, too many new ideas can overload processing capacity so that we cannot understand anything.

It seems likely that students will differ in their ability to benefit from particular kinds of sequences. As Greeno and his colleagues have shown (Larkin, Heller, and Greeno 1980), some students do better when they are given a sequence of generalizations first and specific drill and practice sequences second, while other students do better when the specifics lead to generalizations.

Whatever the structure one uses, it is clear from research that highlighting the structure and giving students cues to the nature of organization that one is using is helpful to many students, particularly those who are lower in intelligence or more anxious (Snow and Peterson 1980). Davis’ (1976) studies of outstanding lectures indicated that professors known as outstanding lectures did two things; they used a simple plan and many examples.

Periodic Summaries Within the Lecture
From our knowledge of students’ note-taking behavior and from our theory of information processing, it seems likely that students would be better able to learn from lectures if there were periodic summaries of preceding material. These give students a chance to catch up on material covered when they were not tuned in and also give them a check upon possible misperceptions based upon inadequate or misleading expectations. Moreover, such summaries can help make clear to students transitions from one theme to another so that they are aided in organizing the material not only in their notes but in their minds.

Probably one of the greatest barriers to effective lecturing is the feeling that one must cover the material at all costs. While it may seem irrational to cover material when students are not learning from it, one would not underestimate the compulsion one feels to get through one’s lecture notes. A remedy for this compulsion is to put into the lecture notes reminders to oneself to check the students’ understanding—both by looking for nonverbal cues of bewilderment or of lack of attention and by raising specific questions that will test the students’ understanding.

In Conclusion
In the conclusion of the lecture, one has the opportunity to make up for lapses in the body of the lecture. Encouraging students to formulate questions or asking questions oneself can facilitate understanding and memory. By making the oral headings visible once again, by recapitulating major points, by proposing unanswered questions to be treated in the reading assignments or the future lectures, and by creating an anticipation of the future, the lecturer can help students learn.

Full citation for this resource: McKeachie, W. J. 1986. Teaching Tips: A Guidebook for the Beginning College Teacher, 8th edition, 79–81. Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath and Company.

The list of references cited in this excerpt can be found at http://www.rutgers.edu/Accounting/raw/aen/latefall99/fdref.htm