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Delivering Presentations

This page contains:

• Giving an effective lecture
• Encouraging student participation
• Activities

Giving an effective lecture

The actual delivery of the material is nearly as important as the content. If students feel they are following along, it is likely that you will be able to maintain their interest. They will be more apt to participate and interact in an active learning mode. The actual delivery of the material is nearly as important as the content. If students feel they are following along, it is likely that you will be able to maintain their interest. They will be more apt to participate and interact in an active learning mode. In some cases, participation may help to reinforce the content or serve as recall seed. If the students feel lost, they will probably shut down and at best will write down information that you put on the board, show in an overhead, or mention.

One challenge to giving an effective lecture is preparing more than one approach to presenting the material. Particularly in science courses, students may not fully grasp an idea in your first presentation. Analogies can be invaluable in helping students understand a point or the relationship between ideas. For some, creating analogies is easy task and may come natural. For others, these must be carefully prepared ahead of time. Some analogies are particularly effective when you use “real life” situations. To do this, it may be useful to set your analogy in a grocery store, nightclub, or at home. For example, when we discuss why reactions in organic chemistry typically occur at the least hindered site of a molecule, I might compare that to how a student would “react” or approach the check-out lines in a grocery store; would they go to the more crowded lane or would they go to the least crowded lane? Another example I use when explaining why electrons from orbitals further away from the nuclei in a molecule are more likely to form new chemical bonds is to compare it to life at home: it’s not the younger kids who are held more closely to the “nucleus” of the family who are more available for dating or “bonding,” rather, it’s the older siblings who can get further away from the family “nucleus” that form new “bonds.”

Encouraging student participation

To encourage student interaction, it is important to establish a culture earlier on in the semester in which their participation is valued. This could be through relatively passive voting system using raised hands to a more active discussion format. For example, when discussing chemical reactions that may form major products and minor products, I ask students to propose chemical structures that they think would be the major product of a particular reaction. I draw all contributed structures on the board and ask the contributors to explain their rationale. In response to their rationale, I say something like “That seems reasonable.” I then ask the class to raise their than hands to vote for the product that they feel would be the major product. After we tally the vote, I identify the correct answer and explain how it is formed and why it is the major product. Although this is a useful technique to use in a large class it also encourages discussion and participation in smaller sections.

Regardless of the size of your class, there will always be a percentage of students who are unwilling to participate in a dialogue with the professor for some reason or another. However, I find it useful to let the students know that I value their concerns and that it is important to me that they understand my lecture. Therefore, if they do not understand something, I ask them to stop me and ask a question so that I can attempt to clarify the point.

Students usually sit in the same seats lecture after lecture and eventually become familiar with the “neighbors.” It is not unusual for them to readily team up with those familiar faces around them. To help catalyze such interactions, it may be useful to ask the students to introduce themselves to their colleagues seated near them on the first day of class. They should understand that if they miss a lecture, their first and maybe best resource for “catching up” may be their classmates. In addition, if students become familiar with those around them and they sense that the classroom is a friendly environment, they may be more comfortable in asking you questions or participating during lecture.

Other methods for student participation include group work. Letting students work in small groups for a few minutes can be a useful learning tool in addition to encouraging active participation with their peers. After a few minutes of group work, you can regroup the class and collect the conclusions that various group have made. This is useful in gauging student understanding of a newly presented concept. Writing a few student answers or conclusions on the board is a good way to let students know that you value their input, even though it may be incorrect.” In some cases, the various points of view presented by students do not differ from current or past hypotheses or paradigms in a particular field and is important to let students be aware of that. After posting a few of the students’ conclusions, it can be useful to then have the entire class vote on which they feel is correct and then finally follow up with the “real” answer or our current understanding of a topic.

The opposite problem to a lack of student participation is a small number of students monopolizing the engagement time with the professor. In some cases, certain students may interrupt frequently or ask an inordinate amount of questions. It may be best to let the students know that if you don’t have time to get to their questions, they should come to see you during your office hours so that you can discuss a point in greater detail and depth.

Learning Activities

	Learning activities
	Choose a particular concept or theory that is typically presented in the course you are teaching. Begin with a simple concept and then repeat these activities with more challenging ones. Work you way through the following checklists to create a more memorable lecture. Activities include: Historical Introduction Use Examples Make an Analogy Encourage Participation Put it Together
	Historical Introduction - return to activities index
	Providing historical background is sometimes a good way to introduce the topic. Read some historical background on the subject. This may be available in your textbook or you may have to search in a journal that focuses upon the history of your discipline. List the key historical points related to this topic. Make a note of the impact that this concept has had on the field. Make a note of any controversy surrounding the topic. For example, were there various researchers competing to explain some phenomenon? Did the arrival of this concept result in a paradigm shift in the field?
	Use Examples - return to activities index
	Use various sources to identify examples that demonstrate the scope or limitations of the concept. Although your textbook may cite examples, supplemental or complementary examples are useful to students especially if you expect them to apply this concept on an exam. Find a simple example that is not in a required textbook. Find a “real life” example from the primary literature. Find an example where this concept or theory does not hold true or cannot be applied (i.e. an exception to the rule).
	Make an Analogy - return to activities index
	The key to making analogies is to reduce the concept down in such a way that a novice or layperson could understand it. You need to strip off all the bells and whistles and ignore the most subtle nuances. Of course this will be an oversimplification, but it should present the main theme of the concept. Identify the main theme or trend that the concept describes. Generalize the concept in a way that it covers most applications. Use this generalization and apply it to a circumstance outside the discipline. Try to apply the concept to some aspect of everyday life such as sibling/parent/children interactions, shopping at the grocery store, dating / breaking up, driving your car, riding the bus, being in a nightclub/bar, etc.
	Encourage Participation - return to activities index
	Create a question that would apply the concept. This type of question should be one that would be a good question for an exam. It should test the limits of the concept. It should encompass some aspects of the subtleties or nuances inherent to the concept. Ideally, it should be a question that students would likely answer the question incorrectly in more than one way. Search your textbook or other textbooks for such questions. Ask other faculty for what they consider a “good” exam question on the concept / theory / topic. After selecting the question, list the likely “wrong” answers that students might provide.
	Put it together - return to activities index
	Now, prepare your notes for a lecture on the concept or theory that you have selected. Use some of your material from the activities above. Begin with an introduction that includes an historical perspective. Include several examples to demonstrate the scope and limitations of the concept. Add an analogy that will and simplify the concept and help students remember it. Create a question in which students are asked to apply the concept. Allow time in your lecture for them to develop answers and encourage participation.