Project Description

Interactive Lecturing: Next Steps

Dr. Deborah Breen

Boston University

In their comprehensive book Interactive Lecturing: A Handbook for College Faculty (2018), Elizabeth F. Barkley and Claire Howell Major emphasize that both persuasive lecturing and well-designed learning activities are key to rewarding interactive lectures that spark enthusiasm and engagement in students. As you think about how to expand your lecturing tool kit, see lecturing and active learning as partners that will create engaging learning experiences for your students.

How do lecturing and active learning work together? A successful interactive lecture will smoothly integrate both aspects of knowledge-building in a complementary way. To achieve that smooth integration, consider the following points (drawn in part from Barkley and Major, pp. 6-17):

Planning and strong organization is key for both lecturing and active learning exercises. Preparation before class and clear communication with students during class about structure and expectations support the interactive lectures as a whole.

Clear learning outcomes need to encompass the whole class session but also be specific to the lecture and active learning components. Be transparent with students about your goals and how they connect to the learning outcomes.

Managing the pace of both the lecture and the active learning components will help to get through content and the activities in a meaningful way. As you experiment with ‘chunking’ your lectures into smaller bites and adding activities into the schedule, remember to allow transition, clarification and reinforcement time so that no part of the class feels rushed.

Convey both your expertise and enthusiasm for your topic to engage student interest. At the same time, be open about the experimentation you are offering with class activities so that students, in turn, will be willing to try new ways of learning.

Here are 3 final thoughts to accompany you on your journey as an interactive lecturer: 

1. Practise the metacognition skills

that you are encouraging in your students! Keep a record of the activities you try out and how and when you integrate them into your lectures. If something doesn’t work the first time, reflect on what happened to see what modifications might be needed for your particular class (sometimes a strategy that works in one class will not work in another: class dynamics can have an impact!). In short, persevere, yet be flexible.

2. Create a cohort of like-minded colleagues

who can support your efforts. Start conversations with colleagues through departmental or disciplinary-specific discussions online or in person. Hearing what others are trying as well as getting feedback from them about your own efforts can strengthen the presence of interactive lecturing in your department or across the institution as a whole. Consider presenting and publishing about your efforts to expand your cohort.

3. Maintain a strong feedback loop:

Feedback from students on the strategies and their impact on their learning will help you refine the effectiveness of your interactive lecturing style. This feedback can be through activities interwoven throughout your classes as well as from student evaluations at the end of semester. Additionally, look at grades to see how activities might have impacted student performance: are there times where performance has improved that can be correlated with specific activities? Finally, ask a colleague to observe your class and give you feedback on how the activities and lectures interacted with each other to create an engaging classroom environment.

Whether you are a novice or expert teacher, don’t give up on your journey of expanding your teaching practice with interactive lecturing! Twenty-first century learners are likely to want more interaction with the instructor, with the material and with each other. They are interested in learning environments that are relevant to their lives, allow them to develop important skills (such as critical thinking, communication and collaboration), provide opportunities to apply their knowledge in creative ways and build meaningful and inclusive communities with their peers. Thus, we need to fine-tune our teaching strategies to respond to the needs of contemporary learners. Interactive lecturing strategies – combining compelling lecturing with relevant active learning – will help us to reach that worthy goal.