Dynamic Lecturing: Tips to Enhance Student Learning, April 6, 2018

Todd Zakrajsek

A couple of weeks ago I made the trip up to Samford University to listen to Dr. Todd Zakrajsek, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. You may have seen him on TedTalks where he discusses "Improve learning by thinking about learning."

This time, his talk focused on Dynamic Lecturing, based on the book he just published, Dynamic Lecturing:  Research-Based Strategies to Enhance Lecture Effectiveness (The Excellent Teacher Series)

His discussion was part lecture, part interaction, and while it took him a while to be more obvious about this distinction, the bottom line of his talk was that the dichotomy between lecture and active learning is a false dichotomy, and that most faculty do a mix of both, and have done so for many years --but we can always improve how we are doing this.  The following is highlighting his ideas and then also listing the different strategies he used throughout his presentation.

His argument is that the human brain is always looking for at least minimal (perceived) value. If a lecture, or a book, or a movie, or any other form of content delivery does not yield this minimal value, then the brain will turn to something that will provide this value -- and people turn to their phones.  (Side note -- a monotonous voice is perceived by the brain as a sound that can be ignored, just like other background noise, so after a while we literally can no longer hear a monotonous lecture)
So, for learning to happen we need
1.  Attention:  Because of the way our brain functions, it is best to lecture in small chunks -- up to 7 minutes is optimal; at that point our brain hits cognitive load saturation.  Change it up with a short group activity that focuses on the lectured content to practice and deepen the content.
2. Understanding:  note taking means we make choices on what to exert energy so we interact with the content and thus learn it.  Typing on laptops allows us to go too fast, so we do not make choices -- so the solution is not to take the laptops away but to give strategies to the typists on how to choose what to type.
3. Value:  Explain to your students how we learn and how something that is difficult for us becomes even more difficult, if not impossible, when we surround ourselves with external stimuli:

Intrinsic load - inherent difficulty of the content

Extraneous load - additional external stimuli -- a good side story can diminish the intrinsic cognitive load, but it can also just be confusing 

Germane load - processing of information, construction and automation of schema, the more you practice the easier it becomes

The myth of multitasking is not entirely a myth -- we can do more than one task at the same time if at least one of the tasks is automatic -- like breathing and walking.  But the second the task becomes more of a cognitive load, like speaking or writing, we can no longer multitask but instead move to task shifting, which takes a lot of energy.

For memory to happen, we just need repetition (btw, tip for passwords:  log in and out 5 times and you will remember your new password)

When a student asks if this is going to be on the test, maybe what the student is really asking is whether this information is worth spending cognitive load on.




Strategy 1:  Let audience know how many responses you are looking for from them before you will move on - and count them while you are collecting them.
Strategy 2:  when asking, how many of you have read, make sure to follow up with how many of you have not read and possibly a third option -- this raises engagement
Strategy 3:  use humor
Strategy 4:  do the unexpected, for example interpret a well-known image differently
Strategy 5:  when you ask your students to watch videos, embed questions -- lots of tools to make this possible.
Strategy 6:  "mute" your projected screen to focus on the discussion at hand or something else that is not on the screen -- CTRL B for black screen, CTRL W for white screen on Windows/Command B and Command W for Mac.
Strategy 7:  at beginning of project  have each person map out when they would be doing the major chunks of work, then have a group discussion at that point for better planning; individual components get written, so individual grades and not everyone gets lumped in.
Strategy 8:  explain to your students why you are doing in class what you are doing