From steve Sun Nov 29 19:48:23 1998 To: margaret frances kerry sara paddy stephany steve philippe iain alison gillian dick s.biello barry Subject: level 1 lecture technique Last week, I got some written feedback from the students on my first 3 level 1 lectures. The salient result was overwhelming support for the simple if apparently tedious tactic of always having an OHP on which the "lecture summary" points from the course handbook for that lecture were copied out (only about 30 words of typing), widely spaced to separate the distinct points (unlike the cramped format in the handbook). I had them up on the screen before the lecture, referred to them as the agenda during the lecture and at the end. Of 122 respondents, all but 4 said this was important (and one of those said not important only "because I have the handbook"), and a considerable minority said it was the single best thing about my lectures. This near-unanimity stands out against somewhat less support for providing a web site (some very enthusiastic, a majority in favour, but a considerable minority said they couldn't care less); and a collection of complaints and suggestions about various things such as going slower, giving more explict definitions of terminology etc. Significantly, under the "suggestions" section, some said that while the lecture summary slide was very important, I should be (even) more careful to go over it carefully at the end as a summary. I should say that it has taken me some years to get here. It was an eventual response to repeated negative feedback about needing a clearer organisation to my lectures, students feeling they weren't sure if they had the main points, etc. This is the first direct feedback since I introduced the tactic, and the evidence seems very strong, though it may well apply mainly to first year lectures. So if you want to help the students and get grateful ratings from them, this is one amazingly easy way to do it. SteveD