Lecturing for Effective Learning
Documentation for the two DVD discs:
Table of Contents
Page
Content and duration of the two DVD discs 3
About theAbout the programs 4
Rationale and description of the programs 4
Structure of the programs 6
Instructions for using the DVDs 6
Suggestions for using the programs by faculty members & faculty developers/workshop facilitators 6
------
Full Text of the Narration of the Programs
Disc 1:
Making Lessons Interesting 9
Introduction 9
Getting Students' Attention 9
Attention-Getting Teacher Behavior 10
Attention-Getting Content 12
Engaging Students 14
Actively Engaging Students 14
Getting Students to Think 17
Disc 2:
Clarity in Teaching 19
Introduction: Clarity in teaching 19
Simplifying 20
Teaching in Two Cycles 20
Structuring and Looking Back 22
Adapting Instruction to Students 24
Evaluating Students' Knowledge 24
Adjusting to Students' Diverse Ways of Learning 25
Classroom Environment
Inducing a positive emotional climate during the lessons 27
Supporting students' learning 28
------
Handouts/short summaries for each program 30
Disc 1: Making Lessons Interesting
Getting Students’ Attention 31
Actively Engaging Students 32
Disc 2: Clarity in Teaching
Simplifying 34
Adapting to Students 35
Classroom Environment 36
Charts for overhead projection 37
List of topics for discussion in workshops 47
List of the participating 24 Stanford instructors and courses 50
List of instructors per main topic 51
Content and duration of the two DVD Discs
[NOTE: times are rounded up to full minutes]
Disc 1: Making Lessons Interesting [108 minutes]
About the Programs [2 minutes]
Making Lessons Interesting
Introduction [1 minute]
Getting Students' Attention
Introduction [1 minute]
Attention-Getting Teacher Behavior [21 minutes]
Attention-Getting Content [35 minutes]
Engaging Students
Actively Engaging Students [25 minutes]
Getting Students to Think [23 minutes]
Disc 2: Clarity in Teaching & Classroom Environment [105 minutes]
About the Programs [2 minutes]
Clarity in Teaching
Introduction [1 minute]
Simplifying
Introduction [2 minutes]
Teaching in Two Cycles [25 minutes]
Structuring and Looking Back [16 minutes]
Adapting to Students
Introduction [2 minutes]
Evaluating Students' Knowledge [13 minutes]
Adjusting to Students' Diversity [23 minutes]
Classroom Environment
Classroom Environment [21 minutes]
About the Programs
These programs present teaching strategies that have been identifiedbeen identified as promoting student learning. The strategies are demonstrated by clips of actual classroom instruction by outstanding teachers at Stanford University. The programs’ design and production was supported by several bodies at Stanford University (see “About the Programs” in each DVD). They are copyrighted by Stanford University and may notmay not be copied. They were produced during the years 1995-1997 on five videotape cassettes with linear editing, and have been recently converted into two DVD discs, each containing about two hours of video clipsvideo clips. The two DVDs contain the full content of the original videotapes, with some rearrangements to fit thefit the new medium. We believe that teaching in colleges and universities has not changed much during the last decade so that the teaching strategies demonstrated in these programs remain as relevantas relevant to college and university teachers todayteachers today. One of the few majorfew major changes has been thebeen the replacement of transparencies displayed with anwith an overhead projector by computer presentations (mostly using PowerPoint) . ). However, the pedagogical principles for using both technologies in teaching are as valid as ever ,ever, and are referred to in the relevant places in this documentation.
The programs were researched, designed, designed, and produced by Dr. Nira Hativa, in association with the Center for Teaching and Learning at Stanford University. Dr. Hativa is the head of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Tel-Aviv University (TAU) and has been a professor in the School of Education at TAU. Her research and publications have concentrated on effective instruction in higher education. She has also been practically engaged in faculty development, primarily in the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) domains.
Dr. Hativa has B.Sc. and M.Sc. in mathematics from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, and a Ph.D. in mathematics education from Stanford University. She was a visiting professor in the Department of Physics at Stanford University during the academic year 1994-5 under a grant from the Peter and Helen Bing Fund for Teaching at Stanford.
For more information, see www.tau.ac.il/~nira or contact
Rationale and Description of the Programs
These programs are designed to deepen thedeepen the pedagogical knowledge of college and university instructors. While many may lack formal preparationformal preparation for teaching, college and university instructors are required to teach well, and in some institutions they are even judged on their teaching in a variety of important situations such as consideration for tenure, promotion, and remuneration.
The widely accepted notion that anybody can teach well, provided that he or she gives enough time to preparation, is definitely a myth. Teaching is a profession, and like any other profession, it requires training in all of its components. In addition to motivation and effort, success in teaching demands certain specific abilities and much knowledge—general knowledge of how to teach (general pedagogical knowledge) and specific knowledge of how to teach in a particular domain (pedagogical content knowledge).
Teaching is highly dependent on context. The most influential factors affecting teaching are the subject matter, the type of course, the course's nature and level, and the students.
The DVD programs focus onfocus on lecture courses at the undergraduate level because lectures remain the predominant fiormform of instruction atinstruction at this level, particularly in STEM courses.
The pedagogical knowledge we provide here is of a general nature and applies across all subject domains and all types of courses. Although all the clips of classroom teaching are taken from the STEM domains, instructors from other disciplines will find that they can understand the content and apply the methods and techniques the clips demonstrate to their own fields.
The teaching strategies presented in these programs were identified from observing dozens of university lessons in a variety of disciplines, and from research literature in four main areas related to teaching: education, psychology, sociology, and communication.
Clips from actual classroom instruction in courses at Stanford University illustrate the teaching strategies we suggest. We chose the 24 participating instructors to be taped on the basis of very high ratings from their students on overall teaching performance. Almost all of them have won one or more university teaching awards.
We should note that there is no single way or any single set of techniques to teach a course effectively. Excellent university teachers differ from one another in the instructional methods they use and in their classroom behavior. Even the same teacher changes his or her methods and behavior for different courses. However, there are several general principles that all of these teachers follow, in spite of their different techniques. The DVD programs cover these general principles while illustrating the variety of strategies/techniques available. We also provide theoretical background for the strategies, explain how they work, and discuss the relationships among them.
The pedagogical knowledge presented here may benefit all teachers interested in specific, effective teaching strategies and may also prove useful for peerfor peer evaluation . evaluation. When peers visit one another’s classes, they are not always aware of what teaching strategies the other teacher is using. The list of strategies provided here enables classroom observers to identify and record the approaches used by their peers.
An additional objective of the programs is to break the isolation in college and university teaching where almost no teacher knows how others teach and hence cannot benefit from the experience of others. The clips of classroom instruction demonstrate how other teachers teach—how they behave, what they do on different occasions, etc.
Structure of the Programs
In mostIn most of the clips, the narratorthe narrator first presents each strategy/technique, usually with accompanying theoretical background. Each strategy is illustrated by one or more classroom clips. Several clips are followed by interviews with the instructor. The instructor explains his or her objectivesher objectives in using the demonstrated strategies/techniques, the choice of strategies, or the preparation required for using the strategies. The programs end with a summary of the strategies that have been presented.
Instructions for Using the DVDs
There are many kinds and versions of DVD-playing software programs. You need to familiarize yourself with thewith the particular DVD-playing software on your computer.
For using these DVDs, select the desired clip or section from the menu ,menu, and start watching by double-clicking on “Watch Movie”. You may navigate forward or backward by using the single or double-arrow keys for regular or fast advancing respectively, or click on the chapter keys to skipto skip chapters.
To identifyTo identify the DVD’s program content structure and to select specific chapters ,chapters, double-click “Select Chapters” within each DVD’s menuDVD’s . menu. To access the theoretical background and the descriptions of teachingof teaching strategies click, click on the rectangular buttons on the left side of the screen. Corresponding to most ofmost of these “theory” buttons, non, the non-rectangular buttons to the right of the screen presentscreen present clips of instructors demonstratinginstructors thedemonstrating the particular strategy.
When you get a red underline on clicking a text button, clicking on this link twice) will run therun the relevant movie clip. If you do not get a red underline on clicking a text button, clicking on the buttonthe button will reveal additionalreveal additional choices.
If you are using the DVDs for presentation in class or in a workshop, you will probably only want towant to show selected clipsselected clips. To do so, open “Select Chapters”, identify theidentify the chapters that you want to use in your presentation, and write down their numbers so that you can access them quickly when presentingwhen presenting. The more advanced DVD-playing software programs include Bookmarkinclude Bookmark or PlayList features that enable the user to select and mark clipsmark clips in advance.
Suggestions for Using the Programs
By faculty members for self-improvement of own teaching
To benefit of your own teaching, we suggest that you watch each topic several times, going back and forth between the theory and the clips demonstrating the strategy. Try to identify everything that you can learn from each clip—not only the strategy itself but also other teaching strategies such as the nonverbal behavior of the instructor, jotting down ideas for future use in your classes and for your students. Better yet, watch the programs with your TAs or a colleague, and discuss with others the teaching methods/strategies as you watch.
By faculty developers/workshop facilitators
The two DVD discs include 4 hours of video clipsvideo clips discussing and demonstrating many teaching-related topics. They can serve as a basis for a large variety of workshops on teaching for faculty and TAas; or when consulting with individual instructors.
For workshops, we recommend that facilitators make a selection inselection in advance of the clips they want to show, following thefollowing the instructions above. Select clipsSelect clips that will best fit yourfit your audience, your objectives, and, and the time available .available . This obviously requires that you familiarize yourself with the content and structure of both DVDs, and also refer torefer theto the relevant parts of this documentation. . Take a look as well at the charts for overhead projection (page 37), and consider providing participants with the Handouts /short summaries are provided for each program (see page 30).
Here areHere are three suggestions s for conducting a workshop with these programs.
· Method 1: Select in advance topics for discussion in your workshop out of the “List of topics for discussion in workshops ” (page 37) in the Appendix. Start the workshop with discussion of these topics and then go over the relevant clips, and continue the discussion.
· Method 2: Start by showing a clip that presents the background and rationale (as presented bypresented by the narrator, or through interviews with teachers) for a particular teaching strategy/technique, let the participants describe their experiences with the strategythe strategy (whether and how they have used it), and then demonstrate the technique in action byaction by showing the classroom clips. . Conclude with a discussiona discussion about the clips and the theoretical background provided, and how the participants mightparticipants might apply it in their teaching.
· Method 3: Start with presenting all clips related to a particular strategy—theory and practice (the classroom clips)— and only then conduct the discussion as above. It is advisable to watch the clips at least twice (possibly before and after the discussion) to achieve the best impact.
Additional ideas:
- clipsClips that ask the user to identify the demonstrated strategies/techniques, encourage, encourage discussion among the participants on the strategies identified.
- Discuss with participantswith participants the teaching style of each instructor shown and try to identify what makes students perceive him/her asher as effective .effective.
- Solicit suggestions from the participants for activities that would help them gain optimal benefits from the teaching styles and techniques they observe .observe.
Additional resources to use in workshops
- Give participantsGive participants copies of the handouts/short summaries for each program.
- Give participantsGive participants relevant copies of the charts for overhead projection.
The following is a detailed transcript oftranscript of the DVD programs—the whole text as presented in these programs by the narrator and the theory clips.
Disc 1:
Making Lessons Interesting
Introduction
Presenting material in an interesting way is an important component of good teaching. How does an interesting lesson contribute to student learning? When a lesson is dull, students stop listening. They daydream, fall asleep, or become engaged in activities other than learning. An interesting presentation helps students concentrate on the material and keeps them alert and attentive.
All teachers want their presentations to be interesting but how can we do that, especially when our material may be difficult or too introductory to have many exciting implications? We suggest here two main methods to make lessons interesting: