From stephany Mon Nov 30 08:02:28 1998 To: Steve Draper Subject: Re: level 1 lecture technique When I started lecturing, one of the things that really amazed me was how poor the notetaking skills of the students were- they were actually trying to write down every word I said, and were not listening at all. To try to address this, and get them to listen more, I start off by telling them this. Especially in the first year I try to explain that the style of lecturing at University is likely to be very different than they had at school. I explain that if their approach in the past has been to write down every word the lecturer says, and regurgitate it on an exam, that this will no longer get them a first. I explain that they will be expected to consolidate ideas themselves, and to do this effectively, they need not only to memorize facts, but understand concepts. I believe to do this the students need to listen more and write less. If they have an understanding of the concept of the lecture, they can go back and fill in details from the text, or outside reading when revising. To try to get students to write less and listen more, I use summaries. I start in the lecture with an outline taken more or less from the objectives, maybe a bit more detailed. We go through it at the start so they will be clear on what basic topics we will cover in any given lecture. I explain that I will go through each section, and try to use specific examples to illustrate concepts. I tell them that at the end of the section I'll do a summary. I try to pull out in a concise way what the key terms and concepts they are responsible for from that section without the details. I explain that I'm doing this to try to get away from people madly writing all the time the details and missing the main points, telling them they should try to listen more and write when we get to the summaries. I usually try to break the lecture into three or four sections. This means there is a brief 2 minute summary about every 15 minutes, which is works as it changes the pace a bit. They usually don't believe me until the first summary, and still write like mad, but when they see that we really do pull out the terms, and the main points in the summaries, I see more upturned faces and pens on desks, while they listen a bit more. I've had very positive feedback from students on this approach. Stephany