It’s very difficult to get students to ask questions because they feel they’re being picked on. But if they start putting up their hand and other students see that you’re prepared to be receptive to that then more and more will start putting up their hands. Invariably they’re good questions which still cover the topic. So you should have enough content for your lectures but not so much that you’ve got to force it to finish. The question that they ask, which they’re worried is a dumb question, is actually the question that probably nearly everyone else wants to ask but is afraid to ask.
Use small group student-centred interaction using structured work sheets that logically develop students' conceptual understanding. It’s a learning cycle approach.
Using clickers, put up say four ideas, and say, who thinks A and who thinks B, C, D. Now in the groups they need to defend their answer, and to talk about it. That way you get the feedback but you don’t have to say Bill, Mary, Jim, Jack, what do you think? You can get them to click their answers.
Only give them two or three minutes to work on a problem. That concentrates them and prevents them just talking about the football or whatever it is that’s on their mind. You need to keep changing the activity, rather than have extended activities. We want them to chat, but human beings won’t sit and chat about quantum mechanics for more than two or three minutes, they’ll get onto what they want for lunch. So it’s finding that balance. Two or three minutes seems to work about right.
Make the students think about the ideas themselves. Have them talk amongst themselves about it. If there’s too much lecturer in the lecture it just washes over them after five to ten minutes. They need to have a break, think about the problems, do a couple of problems and talk amongst themselves. That seems to keep them engaged, especially with the variety of students in the class. It keeps their attention. Lecture for five or ten minutes and use work sheets, which they pick up as they come in.
Lecture for five or ten minutes and use work sheets, which they pick up as they come in. Let them work on the worksheets, then have a discussion and use a response devise, like their mobile phones, to feed back answers.
Do a lot of group work in lectures where students help each other. Randomly allocate them, so the students are in groups which are a mixture of strong people and weak people. The strong people can help the weaker people. The students are actually very good at doing that, it gives you another set of people in the class to help you.
Mix up who the students work with. They’ll sit where they choose in the lecture theatre and then turn them around so they work with people behind them. In that sense even if they’ve sat next to their friend, by turning around, or working randomly with the people in front or people behind, you can mix them up a little bit.
Make the students think about the ideas themselves. Have them talk amongst themselves about it. If there’s too much lecturer in the lecture it just washes over them after five to ten minutes. They need to have a break, think about the problems, do a couple of problems and talk amongst themselves. That seems to keep them engaged, especially with the variety of students in the class. It keeps their attention. Lecture for five or ten minutes and use work sheets, which they pick up as they come in.
