Lecture is Back!: Four steps and one tool for successful lectures and presentations

It is common knowledge that traditional lectures just don't work.

They are long. They are boring. Students do not pay attention to them. They do not retain information from them.

And, if we are honest, we will admit all this. We all know from our own experiences that it is difficult to keep focused for extended periods of time no matter how invested we are in the topic. We know from our own experiences that we often learn best by doing. We know from our own experiences that repetition and repackaging are essential to moving information from short-term to long-term memory.

So, lecture is dead, right? Not just yet.

Despite the very real pitfalls of relying on lecture as a primary method of information transformation, there are still benefits to traditional lectures. We can present a lot of information to a lot students all at once. We can answer questions and clarify understanding in real time. We can help students think differently about the topic being presented.

Of course, those benefits only work if we think about the purposes of our lectures correctly, prepare our lectures properly, and delivery them effectively.

In this interactive conversation--where participants will share ideas, opinions, and experiences using a responsive discussion platform to help identify key themes and summarize emerging ideas--we will explore what we can do to revitalize our lectures and make them an important and effective part of our teaching repertoires. Together we will review some of the benefits of traditional lectures before exploring a framework that can help us transform our lectures into interactive conversations. Finally, we use a tool that help us can create complimentary and post-lecture activities to extend and deepen learning.