Interactive Lecture

This resource serves as an introductory tutorial on the Interactive Lecture strategy. Our goal is to help you explore ways to enhance your presentations so that students actively participate and remember the content.

You will

Reflect on your own experiences with lecturing. Learn how the techniques built into the Interactive Lecture help students actively process and remember critical

information. Explore the research, principles, and classroom phases that make the Interactive Lecture such an effective

presentation strategy. Experience a model lesson using the Interactive Lecture.

Let's Get Started

In recent years, the lecture has fallen on hard times. Prominent researchers have raised doubts about its use, claiming that lectures rely on rote learning and fail to promote active engagement. Yet most of us have either attended or delivered wonderful lectures—lectures that have expanded our thinking, provided fresh insights, or opened our eyes to new worlds. Clearly, lectures can be an efficient way of transmitting large amounts of information in a relatively small amount of time.Take a moment to reflect on some lectures that you have delivered or attended. Think about both the good ones and the bad ones. What are some of the assets of the lecture as a strategy for learning? What are some of the liabilities of the lecture as a strategy for learning? Record your thoughts in the space below. Your goal here is to examine the lecture as a technique for presenting and acquiring information, not to analyze the characteristics of the person who presented a given lecture. After you have come up with some assets and liabilities of the lecture, think about how you might improve the lecture as a presentation technique.

Activity 1: Examining the Assets and Liabilities of the Lecture

Assets of the Lecture Liabilities of the Lecture

Suppose you were redesigning the traditional lecture to accentuate its assets and minimize its liabilities. What changes would you make?

All teaching strategies have both assets and liabilities. We need not abandon the lecture because of its liabilities; rather, we need to find ways to make it work better. In this Strategic Teacher Guide, we'll be taking an in-depth look

at the strategy we call the Interactive Lecture. The Interactive Lecture provides teachers with a strategic format for designing and delivering lectures that do much more than flood students' minds with information. In fact, a well-designed Interactive Lecture can help teachers and students meet at least six critical learning goals. Let's take a look at these six goals. Do any of them correspond with your ideas for redesigning the lecture?

GOAL #1:

Increase Student EngagementIn his meta-analysis of more than 75 separate studies, Robert Marzano (2007) shows that students in highly engaging classrooms outperform students in unengaging classrooms by nearly 30 percentile points. Built into the design of the Interactive Lecture are a variety of brain-based techniques for capturing students' attention and keeping them actively engaged throughout the lecture.

GOAL #2:

Build Students' Information Management SkillsStudents who know how to organize what they learn according to the patterns and hierarchies inherent in the content have a tremendous advantage over students who see each new topic as a mound of "stuff" to sift through. The Interactive Lecture models the use of graphic organizers to put individual pieces of information together to form an integrated whole.

GOAL #3:

Develop Students' Note-Taking SkillsBecoming an effective note taker is crucial to students' academic careers. That's why the Interactive Lecture places such a premium on note taking—on creating a meaningful record of learning that can be used again and again to review and master new content.

GOAL #4:

Deepen ComprehensionSure, we can present information to our students. The essential issue, though, isn't whether we've covered the material, but rather how well students understand it. To enhance students' comprehension of key content, the Interactive Lecture incorporates research-based techniques to help students process content more deeply and derive more meaning from it.

GOAL #5:

Build Students' Background KnowledgeThe Interactive Lecture is designed to help teachers cover large amounts of declarative information more effectively than they would through traditional lecture. Therefore, it is an ideal strategy for building students' background knowledge. Research shows that building students' background knowledge is one of the best ways to raise student achievement levels and prepare learners for future learning challenges.

GOAL #6:

Develop Students' Habits of MindIn their years of research into the defining characteristics of intelligent behavior and thought, Art Costa and Bena Kallick (2008, 2009) have identified 16 "habits of mind." By nourishing these habits in our students, we give them the tools they need to use their minds well, thus increasing their chance for future success. Using the Interactive Lecture in the classroom will help students develop these habits of mind: listening with understanding and empathy, thinking flexibly, applying past knowledge to new situations, thinking and communicating with clarity and precision, gathering data through all senses, responding with wonderment and awe, and thinking interdependently.

Activity 2: The Most Important Goal

Which of the six goals of the Interactive Lecture strategy is most important to you, and why?

It turns out that all of these goals have something in common: memory. After all, each goal— engaging students, enabling them to organize information meaningfully, helping them create more effective notes, deepening their comprehension, building their storehouse of background knowledge, and developing critical habits of mind such as gathering data through all senses—increases the odds that students will remember what we present in our lectures. And memory has to be considered the ultimate criterion for judging the success of any lecture. Why? Because if students remember what we present, then the lecture is a marvel of efficiency, enabling us to cover significant ground in a relatively short time frame. If, on the other hand, students forget what we present in a few hours, then lecturing amounts to a waste of precious classroom time.This raises an interesting question: why do some memories last, while others fade away? To begin answering this question, let's take a few minutes to think about some of our own memories. In each of the boxes below, see if you can remember and record an appropriate memory.

Recalling Memories

Can You Recall...

A memory from earlier today? Where you put your keys last night?

What "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" stands for?

A dream from childhood? A memory from last year? The last time you laughed until you cried?

The exact layout of your room from freshman year at college?

The phases of the water cycle?

Your earliest memory?

Were you surprised by some of the things you remembered? What do you notice about how memory works? What makes a strong memory? Why do you suppose you recall some memories better than others? Jot down your ideas in activity 3.

Activity 3: Your Thoughts on Memory

Memory and the Interactive Lecture

So how does all of this talk about memory translate into something we can use in our classrooms? In this section, we outline four key principles derived from the research on memory. For each principle, we explore specific classroom techniques that you can use to turn a traditional lecture into an Interactive Lecture that students will remember.These principles and techniques will help you answer four common questions associated with classroom presentations and lectures. Take a look at these questions below. How do you answer these questions when you design and deliver lectures (or when someone else delivers an effective lecture)? Use the space provided to record your notes.

Activity 4: Addressing the Challenges of Presenting Information

How can you...capture and hold students' attention?

organize the information in your lecture for optimal learning?

encourage students to actively process the most important content?

provide students with opportunities to review and apply their new learning?

Now let's see how your own ideas compare with the research. On the next page, you will find a matrix organizer (Figure 1.1) broken up into five columns and four rows. On the following pages, you'll read about the four principles of memory-based lecturing. As you read about each principle, we encourage you to underline any information that will help you complete the organizer, including information related to

The challenge each principle presents. The techniques teachers can use to meet these challenges. The effects these techniques have on students.

Complete the organizer, one principle at a time. Once you've read about each principle, you should stop reading to summarize and record key information in the relevant cells of the organizer. Then create a visual icon for each principle that will help you remember what you have learned and record it in the appropriate cell of the organizer. You'll notice that for each principle, we have already filled in one cell of the organizer as a guide.

We conclude our description of each principle with a discussion question to help you connect the principles to your own experiences and classroom practice. Each discussion question is identified by this icon: Write or type the discussion questions on the accompanying word documents and bring it to our next class meeting.

Figure 1.1: The Four Principles Organizer

The Principles of Memory-Based Lecturing

Principle One: The Stronger the Connection, the Stronger the MemoryCapturing and holding our students' attention is the first challenge of memory-based lecturing. To get a better sense of this challenge, look closely at the picture below. Try to stay focused on it for one minute, uninterrupted.

Study This Picture!

So how did you do? Did you find your attention shifting? Did your mind wander to other things in your life? ("I mustn't forget to get milk before I go home.") Was it distracted by things in your immediate environment? ("Boy, it's hot in here!") Did you have trouble finding relevance in the task?Let's face it: it's hard to pay attention. Our minds are constantly shifting focus, and when we ask our students to pay attention, we are asking them to silence all the other thoughts that may be swimming around in their minds and focus on what we are trying to teach them. That's a big price to pay—maybe that's why they call it "paying" attention.This is where the first principle comes in: the better students are able to connect new information to their own experiences, knowledge they already possess, and a sense of purpose, the easier it will be for them to control irrelevant stimuli, focus their attention, and create lasting memories. Art Costa and Bena Kallick (2008, 2009) refer to this critical habit of mind as "applying past knowledge to new situations." During lectures, teachers can use three techniques to develop this habit while capturing students' attention: the hook, kindling, and the bridge. As you examine each of these techniques, note how they help students apply past knowledge to new information.

The Hook. The hook is where you attach your bait so that you can reel in students' minds. Well-designed hooks establish a strong sense of intrigue, wonderment, and curiosity at the lecture's outset. Hooks come in the form of questions or activities designed to get students thinking about the content by tapping into their prior knowledge about it.In general, there are four kinds of hooks, each of which corresponds to a particular style of thinking. To see the differences among the four styles of hooks, let's imagine that an elementary school teacher is about to begin a lesson on how and why leaves change color. Below are the four kinds of hooks the teacher could use to begin the lesson, along with an example for each style.

Hooks in the Four Thinking Styles

Mastery hooks ask students to recall and repeat relevant information. To make mastery hooks especially engaging, work in an element of challenge.Example: "How much do you know about trees and leaves? In the next 60 seconds, jot down everything you can remember about trees and leaves. Ready? Go!"

Understanding hooks raise curiosity by focusing on controversy or by getting students to think about discrepant events and phenomena.Example: "Here's an interesting question: why do some trees stay green all year while others change color?"

Self-Expressive hooks engage students' imaginations and their capacity to ask "What if?"Example: "What do you think would happen if trees didn't lose their leaves? How would the world be different?"

Interpersonal hooks invite students into the content by encouraging them to make a personal connection to the lecture topic.Example: "What are some different things people do to prepare for changes in season? What do you do?"

Kindling. Kindling (Silver, Strong, & Perini, 2001) is the second technique associated with the principle of connection. After posing the hook, the teacher allows students to generate and flesh out their ideas by

Giving students time to stop and think. Allowing students time to jot down their initial ideas on paper. Encouraging students to share their ideas with a partner. Collecting and recording students' responses on the board.

The idea here is simple but powerful: as students write down their ideas and share them with a partner, they are "kindling" their own interest in the subject matter.

The Bridge. The bridge is the third technique associated with the principle of connection. With students' thoughts collected and recorded where everyone can see them, the teacher now creates a bridge to connect students' prior knowledge to the new topic. For example, the teacher teaching the lesson on leaves may create a bridge by saying, "Now that we've talked about how people get ready for different seasons, let's look at how trees prepare themselves for spring and for winter. What is the most noticeable change in trees?" [Students observe that leaves sprout in the spring and change color and fall off their trees in fall and winter.] "Let's find out how and why this happens."When you start your lesson with a hook, kindling, and a bridge, your students will be more attentive, more interested in learning about the content, and better primed to create lasting memories of the information in your lecture.

Stop now and complete the cells in the top row of Figure 1.1

For discussion: Have you used or seen hooks, kindling, and/or bridges in lectures or presentations? What has your experience with these techniques been?

Principle Two: The Clearer the Organization, the Stronger the MemoryThe second challenge of memory-based lecturing is to organize the information for easier and faster recall. Consider the following question: is it easier to find an article of clothing in a messy closet or an organized closet? The obvious answer is that it is easier to find something in an organized closet. Our memory works the same way. We remember more information more easily when it has a clear pattern or structure. When we organize numerous bits of information into categories or chunks, our minds have to focus only on a specific chunk of information— not all the information at once—to find a particular piece of data.To illustrate the importance of this principle, try this pop quiz about a topic you've probably been taught at least three times in school:

Pop Quiz

What are the three main parts of the U.S. Constitution?

Some of us (especially teachers of U.S. history) may have little difficulty in laying out the three main parts of the U.S. Constitution off the top of our heads. But for the rest of us, memory may fail us. One reason is that we have probably never been asked to "see the structure" of the U.S. Constitution. What do we mean by "seeing the structure" of that critical document? Take a look at the next page.

Figure 1.2. Constitution Organizer

How does seeing its structure help you better understand the Constitution? How does it help you retrieve information about the Constitution that's already been stored, but not necessarily organized, in your memory?The technique we use to implement the principle of organization is the visual organizer. Visual organizers provide students with an overview of the lecture as a whole. Visual organizers also structure the chunks of information that students will be expected to collect during the lecture. Every visual organizer must provide enough space for students to fill in specific details related to particular chunks within the lecture. One key to using visual organizers effectively during a lecture is to slow students down. Instead of encouraging students to write as you present, let them listen. Then go back and record the critical information on the organizer. Finally, let the students record the information on their organizers.

The work of David Hyerle (2009) and many other researchers has shown that the effects of visual organizers on student learning are significant. As far as lecture organizers go, we have found that when students are able to see the structure of a lecture before it begins and know what information to collect, they are far less likely to miss important information during the lecture. Visual organizers also create expectations about learning and about how new information will be experienced. Developing this kind of anticipation is an excellent way to hold students' attention during a lecture.

Stop now to complete the cells in the second row of Figure 1.1

For discussion How did the Constitution organizer help you better understand the Constitution? How did it help you retrieve previously stored information?

Principle Three: The Deeper the Processing, the Stronger the MemoryThe third challenge of memory-based lecturing is giving our students the time and means to process the information we want them to remember. So how do we facilitate the kind of deep processing that leads to strong memories? To find out, call up a strong memory from high school. As you recall it, try to draw on all your senses by asking yourself these questions:

Can you see it? What image do you have in your mind? Can you feel it? Are there any sensations you associate with it? Can you smell it, taste it, or hear it? Are any other senses engaged? What emotions do you associate with it? Is there a story behind it?

The point here is that strong memories tend to be chock-full of vivid images, strong sensory impressions, precise details, and powerful emotions, and they often have a narrative component that makes them richer and more meaningful than other memories. Thus, during our lectures and presentations, we should provide students with opportunities to gather and process data through as many senses as possible. Simply put, "the more senses that are engaged, the greater the learning" (Costa & Kallick, 2000, p. 87).

Here's an experiment. Read the following descriptions of life at sea during the Age of Exploration. Which one is more memorable? Why?

Description 1Because there was so little access to fresh food and because disease spread through the water sailors drank and the air they breathed underneath the decks, sickness and death were common occurrences on long sea journeys.

Description 2The insides of the ships were cramped, filthy places where rats ran wild. Clothes and beds and even the thick stale air teemed with germs. Sickness was everywhere. So was starvation and dehydration as food and fresh water ran out. Many of the men came down with scurvy, their gums rotten and bleeding and black.

The first description tells us the main reasons that the sailors became sick, but provides precious little imagery to capture the mind's attention. The second description contains vivid details and images that allow us to see and even smell the content. Many more students will be able to deeply process the second description than the first one, which is easily forgotten.

As lecturers and presenters, we can facilitate this kind of deep, multisensory processing in a variety of ways. We can use images, visual aids, or physical aids that students can touch and feel. We can conduct demonstrations. We can vary the tone and level of emotion in our voices to emphasize the most important information. We can use humor, stories, examples, and elaboration in our lectures to help students deepen their levels of engagement with the content. Last but not least, we can directly involve students in our lectures by providing them with processing activities, such as explaining ideas in their own words, generating their own examples, exploring their emotional reactions to the material, or creating visual or physical representations of key ideas.

When we give students the opportunity to process content deeply, in a variety of ways and through multiple senses, we are greatly increasing the chances that the most important ideas in our lectures get "dual-coded" (Paivio, 1990)—that is, stored in multiple parts of each student's memory. As a result, the memories of these ideas increase in strength and are easier to retrieve when needed.

Stop now to complete the cells in the third row of Figure 1.1

For discussion: What are some of your favorite memory-enhancing techniques that you have used or have seen used in presentations? Which seem to have the greatest effects on student learning?

Principle Four: Memories Are Like Muscles: They Develop with ExerciseProviding our students with ample opportunity to exercise and apply what they have learned is the final challenge of memory-based lecturing. Students take a more active approach to creating strong memories when they think about what they have learned rather than when they simply record it. The more students think, the more their minds begin to elaborate, thus cementing earlier connections. Attention is necessary here, but in itself is not enough. After all, how many times have you tried to give all your attention to reading a chapter on something like English grammar and walked away remembering next to nothing? Odds are you were not thinking about what you were reading, so you could not remember what you read.The big question now is, how do we help our students think about the information they receive during a lecture? We can accomplish this goal through the technique of stopping and questioning. During our lectures, we must stop and pose questions that encourage our students to reflect on what they have learned. A good rule of thumb is to stop every one to three minutes for primary students, every three to five minutes for upper–elementary school and middle school students, and every five to seven minutes for upper–middle school and high school students during the course of your lecture. As with hooks, the questions that we pose to students during our lectures can be designed to engage all four styles of thinking: we can pose Mastery questions to facilitate recall and review of key information, Understanding questions to help students make inferences and draw conclusions, Self-Expressive questions to spur students' imaginations, and Interpersonal questions to help students examine personal values and feelings. By rotating through all four styles of questions during our lectures, we speak to all the learners in our classroom—not just the lucky few whose styles match our own. As an example, Figure 1.3 shows four review questions—one in each style—that a high school art teacher posed at different stopping points during a lecture on Impressionism.

Figure 1.3. Review Questions in All Four Styles

MasteryTurn over your paper. See if you can remember three "rules" of traditional art that the Impressionists broke.

InterpersonalWhich of the three painters whose work we examined do you like best? Why?

UnderstandingTake a look at this painting on the projector. Should it be classified as Impressionist? Why or why not? What techniques do you see that help you make your decision?

Self-ExpressiveImagine that you're an Impressionist painter and your latest exhibit has been panned by art critics. What would you say to help the art world better appreciate your work?

Once the lecture has ended, students should be encouraged to synthesize what they have learned through a culminating task that asks them to apply information and ideas from all parts of their organizer. By having students elaborate on and synthesize their thinking through four styles of review questions and a synthesis task, students practice using the information multiple times and then apply it. During the days following the lecture, remind and encourage students to use their completed organizers as study guides to help them revisit and solidify their learning over time. Memories created in this way can last a lifetime.

Stop now to complete the cells in the bottom row of Figure 1.1

For discussion: Research shows that three elements—repetition, variation, and depth of thought—help us create deep and lasting memories. How do review questions in all four styles address these three elements?

In presenting the four principles of memory-based lecturing, we made a point to practice what we preached. How did this tutorial make use of some of the techniques discussed in the reading? What effects on your learning did these techniques have? See if can identify at least four different techniques that we used in this tutorial to enhance memory. Use the space below to record your thinking.

Activity 5: Memory-Enhancing Techniques Used in this Tutorial

Techniques Effects on Learning

1. 1.

2. 2.

3. 3.

4. 4.

From Principles to Phases: Breaking Memory's CODE

Each of the four principles you have just read about corresponds directly to a specific classroom phase of the Interactive Lecture. Figure 1.5 shows how the four principles lead to the four phases of implementation. You'll notice that combining the first letter of each phase spells out the acronym CODE. Why CODE? Because when you design your lectures to move through these four phases, you and your students will be able to "break memory's code," or ensure that lecture content gets encoded in students' permanent memories.

The Four Principles and Phases of the New American Lecture

To help students practice the habit of metacognitive reflection, we strongly recommend that you teach students these four phases and call attention to the valuable memory techniques embedded in each phase. Another way to think about the phases of the Interactive Lecture is as a cycle. We start in Phase One with the hook and the bridge, and then we move to Phase Two and our visual organizer. During this phase, we present a chunk of information, allow students to deeply process that information, and then stop and present a review question. Here's where the cycle comes in: after each stop in the lecture, we return to Phase Two, present the next chunk, engage deep processing, and pose another review question until the lecture is complete and we move on to the synthesis task. Figure 1.6 shows the Interactive Lecture cycle. How does this visual representation of the Interactive Lecture cycle support your understanding of the implementation of the strategy?

The New American Lecture Cycle

Used with permission from SOUTH-WESTERN COLLEGE PUBLISHING, A DIVISION OF CENGAGE LEARNING, from The Interactive Lecture: How to Engage Students, Build Memory, and Deepen Comprehension (A Strategic Teacher PLC Guide) Harvey F. Silver, Matthew J. Perini, 2010; permission conveyed through Copyright Clearance Center, Inc.

Additional Resources for Teaching Methods: Science Education Resource Center: https://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html