Tips for Recording a Good Lecture (Part 2)

When I applied to university, I didn’t know what I wanted to major in. I think I wrote “Psychology” and “Political Science” but I really had no idea. So, I tried to take courses on any subject that appealed to me: an introduction to sociology, an introduction to politics, to Canadian literature, to French, to psychology, to Greek mythology, and a couple others.

One of these courses was held in a 700-seat theatre. And I was never brave enough to move to the front row, let alone the front section. I sat in the back section, in the back row -- and occasionally I’d look up from my blank page to peer at the tiny person (at least from that distance!) at the front of the room, and try to figure out what he was saying. Needless to say, I did not do well in that course.

Since then, I’ve developed a lot of sympathy for that instructor at the front of the room. Lecturing is easy; lecturing well is difficult; lecturing well to a nearly empty 700-seat theatre is a monumental, if not impossible, task.

What will lecturing look like in our remote courses? It remains a key, sometimes necessary, way to convey information or argument to a lot of people at once.

But there are some unique challenges to lecturing remotely. If we’re lecturing synchronously or asynchronously, we’ll be missing out on the students’ feedback: the way their foreheads wrinkle when they don’t understand or the way the emotional temperature in the room rises when you hit on a really compelling idea. And the students will be confronted, even tempted, by all the distractions they have available, right there on the same device that we’re requiring them to learn from.

For that reason, I think we have to figure out some good ways to make our lectures as engaging as possible.

Or to put it another way: when it comes to remote teaching we’re all faced with a math problem. All the research says that students’ attention drops, drastically, the more we lecture – especially in remote teaching. As Philip Guo says, “students have much shorter attention spans when watching educational videos online.”

So, how do we keep students’ attention when we feel compelled to lecture – and what do we do instead?

Here are some ideas for making your lecture – whether you deliver it to a Zoom-hosted class (synchronous) or record and post it in Blackboard (asynchronous) – engaging, a potentially inspiring activity which brings people together to learn a consistent or stable set of facts, processes, or ideas.

Keep it short.

There is an irony in repeating this idea (and thereby making the document longer). But it’s key. Our attention – let alone our students’ – tend to wander after about 10 minutes when we’re looking at a screen. So, if you’re recording, keep that 10-minute mark in mind; if you’re delivering a lecture in Zoom, think about breaking up your lecture – that time when you’re the sole-deliverer of material – into smaller chunks.

But what can you break up that lecture with? You could

OPEN WITH

• a poll,
• an annotated slide,
• an hypothesis, and/or
• a moment of reflection (on a compelling image or statement).

CLOSE WITH

• a discussion of a case study,
• a guided reflection,
• a breakout room discussion,
• a practice opportunity,
• a quiz, and/or
• an annotated slide.

Begin with a story or a key fact.

When Aristotle wrote about rhetoric, he suggested that there are three ways to persuade someone: by an appeal to logic (logos), an appeal to emotion (pathos), and an appeal to the speaker’s credibility (ethos).

The first two are really important for lecturing, in general. I keep those in mind when I’m in a classroom, and remind myself that a well-placed story (about myself or about something I’ve recently encountered) might go a long way to convince students about the importance of the topic at hand. Or sometimes a logical appeal works well too, in the form of a series of crucial facts or the revelation of a cause-and-effect relationship.

And when we’re faced with the time limits that come with lecturing remotely, it’s important to use these – logos and pathos – wisely. Begin by telling a short and poignant story, one that encapsulates or explains the issue at hand. Or try putting your most compelling (and perhaps strange!) fact first. The rest of the lecture might work to explain why it’s true that, say, the history of the United States is embedded in panels of comics or that the old adage is only partly wrong; money can buy you happiness.

Give students a reason to listen.

With so many distractions at their fingertips, students might be (more?) tempted to allow their attention to wander, opening a tab next to Zoom or doom-scrolling through Twitter as the lecture plays in Blackboard. So, consider giving them some immediate and conspicuous reason for listening. You could:

• explain the video’s/lecture’s relevance to the course,
• highlight what they’ll find in the lecture,
• give them questions that they’ll answer once the lecture has finished,
• ask them to think about how this topic applies to their own lives or current projects,
• follow the lecture with a quiz (possibly ungraded), or
• direct students to the discussion boards or some kind of “DO” activity.

Show that you’re engaged.

When Karen Costa (by way of Rose Cavanagh) talks about conveying your interest in “the students, the material, and the process of learning,” she is talking about making sure that all of our lectures/videos have immediacy cues, the sort of signals that communicate our interest. So, when lecturing, remember to bring in all those signs:

• make eye contact (with the camera, not the screen),
• lean forward,
• smile,
• aim for a relaxed posture,
• use gestures, and
• vary your vocal tones.

As Costa (author of the endlessly helpful, 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos) explains, those small behaviours will help approximate the sort of care or interest you show in the in-person classroom. The challenge here, I think, is that the camera sucks energy; so you’ll need to be conspicuous with these cues.

Find a good set up.

There are a lot of good tips online for recording/broadcasting, but here are the best ones that I’ve seen. With just a little set up, the quality of your recording/broadcasting will go up. Try:

• putting a light source (natural light works best or a small lamp) in front or maybe beside you,
• having the camera level with your face and try to look at it (not the screen),
• getting a decent mic if possible, and
• having decent posture.

When it comes to the set-up of your screen (e.g., your slides), consider that we should always do more than read our slides. In fact, if you can read your slides as a substitute for your lecture, there might be too much content on them or it’s a sign that lecturing isn’t the best option.

When I’m in a face-to-face classroom, I try to limit each slide to 25 words or less and no more than one every three minutes (on average). When I’m teaching remotely, I might have a few more words and a few more slides – but I try to remember that if students are paying attention to the slides they won’t or can’t be paying attention to what I’m saying. It’s a difficult balance to strike sometimes.

Try something else.

Sometimes you’ll discover that a lecture just isn’t the best activity for your class. In fact, that might be a question that you ask yourself, “Why is lecturing the best vehicle for this material?” There are good answers to that question – because you have ideas or a way of explaining them that the students won’t be able to read or watch elsewhere; because there is value in learning together and from someone who has expertise; because you need to stabilize a particular set of ideas or processes – but sometimes you’ll decide that you could be doing something other than lecturing.

Consider these options:

• having a colleague interview you or vice versa,
• recording a Q+A with student-generated questions (or writing an FAQ),
• scripting a dialogue or a case study,
• sending students to find OER to explain a particular subject,
• writing and annotating your lectures, and
• recording a podcast (either as a narrative or as an interview).

Sources

Costa, Karen. 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos: A Guide for Online Teachers and Flipped Classrooms. Stylus, 2020.

Written by: Joel Baetz

Last Updated: 24 August 2020