Evaluation and Assessment | Teaching Practices |Teaching with Technology| Sample Course Evaluation Forms
Teaching Tools
2. Teaching Practices
2.4. Knowing Your Students
Enhancing Large Lectures
Learning in large lectures requires skills that many students have not yet developed, such as active listening and note-taking. Because the lecture setting can often be passive, it is especially important for students to have good cues so they can better organize, retain and use what they learn. Many faculty use strategies like those described here to emphasize the structure of ideas in each lecture. This emphasis is particularly helpful to the many students who have difficulty seeing the organization on their own.
- Highlight major points at the beginning of the lecture. A skeletal outline of the day's agenda reveals the structure of the topic and prepares students to listen effectively. Ideally, this outline will have 3 or 4 segments which reflect the 3 or 4 major concepts you will cover.
- Explicitly distinguish between generalization and examples, conclusions and evidence, or trends and isolated events because students often don't easily differentiate type of information when the pace and density of information are greater than they have been used to.
- Summarize periodically during each class and at the end of a lecture. These summaries reinforce main points and, in addition, enable students to monitor their comprehension and create natural points for asking questions.
- Consider incorporating some interaction and discussion. Even in large classes, you can paraphrase the comments of each student so that everyone in the room can hear and benefit from the interaction.
Adapted from the Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence at Carnegie Mellon University
