Lecture Best Practices

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Lectures make up a significant part of our classes and are important to get right. We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to exposing students to concepts through our lectures. Here are some key insights.

• The energy you put in to a lecture determines the energy you get back from your students. Come in fresh!

• Read over the ‘script’ a few times in the days leading up to the lecture. Some teachers find it helpful to take separate notes that will guide them, as opposed to only sticking to the longer script.

• Identify two/three key points and put them in student friendly language. As you write the script what are two or three things students HAVE to remember for the next day, for the next week, for the rest of their coding journey. How can you put it in language students understand? How can you make it sticky? Make an anchor chart or write your key points on the board so that you remember and students remember to reference them often

• Practice/Hone the ‘hook’ : What is the thing that’s going to make this lesson relevant/interesting? Like a good storyteller, is there a way you can grab the students’ attention early on?

• Unless students are following along (code-along style), encourage students to go “half-mast” with their laptops, to encourage students to focus. You can have an attention getting signal (countdown from 5, "if you can hear me clap once", hands up, mouths off) when it's time to bring students together after group work.

• Try to vary the interactivity of your lecture. You shouldn’t go more than 8-10 minutes without taking a break for students to stop and try the code out for themselves with a mini-challenge.

• The more you can make your lecture relevant the better. That means getting to know your students and then using that information in your lectures. (“Ok, Mikey loves playing soccer. Let’s make an array of all the soccer teams he’s a fan of”). This is especially helpful for students lacking engagement.

• Checks for understanding

  • Talk to a partner and explain.
  • Share your partner's thoughts with the whole group after the Turn & Talk.
  • Use your arm as a meter for how well you understand.
  • Thumbs-Up, Thumbs-Down
  • Use mini-whiteboards to get whole class participation on questions.
  • Cold calling (use this carefully as you don’t want to put students who are struggling on the spot)
  • Ask for volunteers to repeat back the concept.
  • Ask for students to phrase the instructions in their own words before releasing them for independent work.

• Pause for synthesis at various points in the lecture: What is this? Why is this important? Why did we do it like this? Can you summarize this? How could we add to it?

• Summarize before each break and at the end of the day

  • $2 Summarizer: With each word worth 10 cents, write a $2 summary of the learning from the lesson. Optional to include key vocab students must use (string, datatype, float). (or you can have them write a haiku, a poem etc)
  • Quick Talk: Students move around the room until you say stop. They high five with someone next to them and are now a pair. If you are the partner who lives the farthest from Flatiron you are Partner A. Partner A. Take 30 seconds to explain (key point 1). Partner B, explain (keypoint 2). Everyone find a new partner. Partner A is the person who has the closest birthday to today. Partner A, share one thing that still confuses you. Partner B offer any advice.
  • Error Analysis: Show an code with an error on the board. Students have two minutes to figure out a. what the error is and b. how to fix it
  • Aha! and Huh?: On notecards, students write one "Aha!" moment they had and one "Huh?" thing they need to work on that night. (Be sure to address the common Huh theme during the next class).
  • Summary Ball: Teacher asks a basic level question to the group. Whoever knows it catches the ball, & provides the answer. The teacher builds rigor of question to ask a new one. The student with the ball throws the ball to a new student to answer question 2. This continues until (a all students have had a chance to answer or more likely b. all key points have been synthesized.
  • Two Truths and a Lie. Option A: Teachers shows two truths and a lie about a coding concept (or maybe even two working snippets of code and one with an error). Option B: Students write their own truths and lie about the coding concept and have to swap with a partner they haven't worked with to try and figure the lie out. Good high level rigor if they are writing their own questions AND trying to solve another student's trio.
  • The Three Minute 3: Minute 1 - in groups summarize the key points in their own words. Minute 2- in groups discuss their own ideas about the key points. Students should write their own connections and thoughts (This reminds me of, one way I remember this, this relates to another topic by) Minute 3 -Students should list questions they still have or concepts they are still unclear about
  • Conversation Competion (for vocab heavy labs)- Give students a list of 5-7 words to talk about. In pairs, have them stand. They check off their list during their conversation and sit down when they are done. After a few minutes, go through the list whole-class and have any pairs that were seating share how they used a specific word.

• Check out this great resource from Carnegie Mellon University

• Asking deliberate questions is important. Here is a short guide of different types of questions to try to include in your lecture.

View this lesson on Learn.co