Lecturing Guidelines

I watched a junior instructor today as part of our school's promotion and tenure (PT) process. Everyone in the tenure-stream gets observed once or twice a semester. The observer writes a report, and that report goes into the PT Committee's annual assessment of the tenure-stream faculty member's teaching, service, and creative/research output. 

It's nerve-wracking to be watched and evaluated. I didn't like being on the receiving end of that when I was untenured. As a watcher now, I try to make the experience as non-nerve-wracking as I can. My person today was nervous and felt off. They seemed mostly fine to me, just inexperienced. 

As I was watching, taking notes for a future conversation with the person about how they might up their teaching game (as we all can), I thought about composing a bit of a guide for creating theatre lessons in lecture-style classes. 

I know the L-word causes some pedagogy folk to recoil. Paulo Freire talked about the "banking model" of education: the teacher has a store of knowledge, which they deposit into the empty, passive minds of students. Students then return (vomit back out) that knowledge on a test. It's a thin view of what knowledge is, and it renders students relatively powerless to do anything to or about the knowledge they absorb and return. 

I get that, and my discipline is better than most about embodied learning. My history classes generally have some kind of performance project attached. I try to get students to synthesize and innovate instead of simply regurgitate knowledge. I want them to be creative, not just accurate. 

Still, though, such embodied learning requires a degree of common, basic knowledge. Lectures are one way of imparting that knowledge. I like to think I'm a better-than-average lecturer. Here's some basics to my philosophy of lecturing:

Communicate what you're covering and why. I start every semester with a "why are we here" conversation. "Why are you taking this class?" Inevitably, students answer with some variation of "It's required." "OK," I return, "but why is it required? Why do we make every theatre major take a history class?" That usually spurs some better answers. What I'm trying to get them to isn't just reasons but stakes. I want them to see how the class I'm teaching contributes something vital to their craft. 

Clarify how you teach. I also try to have some meta-pedagogical moments in my teaching. Here's how I've set up this class. Here's how I handle lectures. Here's what I expect you to pick up from lectures. Here's how I test these expectations in various assignments. Here's how those lectures and assignments connect to the stakes/goals we started with.

Clarify your philosophy of lecturing and listening. This may seem like an odd instruction. You lecture to give some information. Yeah, that's so. But I don't take it for granted that my students all know how to engage a lecture and get useful information. So I identify and explain (usually as I go) some of the features of how I lecture.

I have a "no screens" policy in class. I expect students to take notes, and (absent some accessibility issue) I expect them to take notes by hand. I point to the research that shows that, while tying notes on a computer can often result in an accurate transcription of what the professor has displayed on the screen or the board, transcription isn't the point. The point is to record the knowledge I'm conveying in a way that means something to the student. Typing doesn't do that as well as handwriting does.

I pare down the notes I show. I do words or phrases when possible instead of full sentences. I explain that I want students to write down not the exact words I'm saying but their own way of putting what I'm saying. I'll talk a lot more than the words I put on screen, in other words. I want them to take notes on what I'm saying, not (only) what I'm showing.

I slow down, presenting notes one bullet point at a time. Writing takes time. I try not to move on until everyone's finished writing. I do not present an entire screen of words, talk over it, and then flip to the next screen. 

I highlight terms or ideas I especially want them to see. Sometimes I'll even say "This part is just background; you don't need to worry about getting it down" and then transition to "and here's where I'd start to take notes more exactly if I were you." 

I don't just read the notes I have. I mean, most of the time, that'd be a list of truncated phrases. My lecture creates connective tissue between points. Where possible, I try to involve students in this flow. OK, so we have idea 1 here. What might you have to think about as a result of 1? That's right! Idea 2 (reveal next bullet point). As much as is possible, I try to have students help guide themselves through the lecture. Hiding and then revealing bullet points one by one lets me use some dramaturgical tricks (or rhetorical tricks, if you prefer): building, tension/release, surprise, twists, etc. 

I also pause to walk around and just talk. Especially after I present some surprising or significant point. I'll pause, ask for some student reflection, and walk around to try to get some feedback. If I have a fun anecdote or illustration, I can deliver it here. I try to break up the monotony of professor-behind-lecturn when I can. It also lets me reach some of the back-row Baptists who may otherwise be drifting. I can move to the back, sit down, have a chat with the class (as most other people turn in their seats to look at me). And ideally, my conversation leads me to the next point to talk about.

 Pictures and brief videos are also good interrupters of monotonous lecturing. I try to be careful (when I'm on my game) to set up videos--telling students what to watch out for and then asking them about it afterward, reinforcing those points I've covered already.

This is a personal one: I avoid powerpoint where possible. My preferred mode of note-giving is with an opaque projector. I manually cover up and reveal the next bullet point. And sometimes--if a student gives an especially creative answer--i can simply write or draw right onto the paper a new term or idea. I can skip around, not stuck to just the flow I've pre-programmed.  

More recently, I've adopted a check-out question format. I set my alarm for 3 minutes before the end of class. It goes off, I ask students to write down something about what we discussed. Sometimes it's as simple as "What's something from today that stuck out to you?" Sometimes it's a question directly related to the terms we've gone over "What's an example of a nonlinear plot from some movie, TV show, or play you're familiar with?" When I can, I take time at the top of the next class to revisit some of these. It takes more prep time, but I've found it generally a rewarding feedback loop for me and the students. I get to clarify a few issues, and students enjoy learning that what they write matters to me.

I'm still improving. I try to note when I get bored by something in my own class. That's usually a sign that I need to spice things up a bit.