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The following links are to help you get started with being your instructional design and planning . We have presented the idea of backwards design which helps you to start with your students from "where you want them to be"  and working backwards to build the methodology and activities that will achieve the objective

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The following links are to help you get started with being your instructional design and planning . We have presented the idea of backwards design which helps you to start with your students from "where you want them to be"  and working backwards to build the methodology and activities that will achieve the objective

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Stage One – Identify Desired Results:

In the first stage, the instructor must consider the learning goals of the lesson, unit, or course. Wiggins and McTighe provide a useful process for establishing curricular priorities. They suggest that the instructor ask themselves the following three questions as they progressively focus in on the most valuable content:

What should participants hear, read, view, explore or otherwise encounter?

This knowledge is considered knowledge worth being familiar with. Information that fits within this question is the lowest priority content information that will be mentioned in the lesson, unit, or course.

What knowledge and skills should participants master?

The knowledge and skills at this substage are considered important to know and do. The information that fits within this question could be the facts, concepts, principles, processes, strategies, and methods students should know when they leave the course.

What are big ideas and important understandings participants should retain?

The big ideas and important understandings are referred to as enduring understandings because these are the ideas that instructors want students to remember sometime after they’ve completed the course.

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Cite this guide: Bruff, D. (2010). Lecturing. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/lecturing/.

The Basics

"Lecturing is not simply a matter of standing in front of a class and reciting what you know. The classroom lecture is a special form of communication in which voice, gesture, movement, facial expression, and eye contact can either complement or detract from the content. No matter what your topic, your delivery and manner of speaking immeasurably influence your students' attentiveness and learning."

The above quote is from "Delivering a Lecture," a chapter in Barbara Gross Davis' classic text Tools for Teaching. That chapter is an excellent resource for learning how to lecture well. See also Davis' chapter, "Preparing to Teach the Large Lecture Course."

When planning a lecture, keep in mind that you have control or influence over several elements of your classroom:

1. Visual Message - The slides and other visual aids you use can either complement or confuse your verbal message, depending on how you design them. Consider how photos and other images might function as metaphors that make your points more memorable. (For an example, see the "Lecturing Basics" slideshow above.)

2. Physical Presence - While some instructors are naturally gifted public speakers, we can all be more aware of and leverage our physical presence to better communicate to our audiences. (Watch "The Act of Teaching: Theater Techniques for Classrooms and Presentations" for great advice from Harvard University's Nancy Houfek on improving your physical presence in the classroom.)

3. Verbal Message - Whether you prepare typed lecture notes or just improvise in the classroom, the words you say are an integral part of your lecture.

4. Students' Notes - Students can often spend more mental energy taking notes during class than thinking about your content. Consider ways you can make it easier for your students to take notes so they can focus more on engaging with your material.

5. What Students Think - As Angelo and Cross say in their classic book Classroom Assessment Techniques, "teaching without learning is just talking." How can you help your students mentally grapple with your material during class?

6. What Students Say & Do - Keep in mind that even in a so-called lecture class, you don't have to lecture the whole time. Consider small-group and whole-class activities that might enhance your students learning.

Effective Visuals

Garr Reynolds' book Presentation Zen is a great introduction to effective use of slides in presentations. Garr also maintains a great blog on presentations. Some key points from Presentation Zen:

Keep it simple. Your slides should complement your verbal message, not detract from it by unnecessary visual clutter. In many instances, students should be able to take in your slides in a second or two, then focus on you.

Limit bullet points and text. Keep in mind that your slides probably shouldn't function as your own personal teleprompter. Your slides are for your students' benefit. If your slides say just about everything that you say, then your students won't know where to pay attention-to you or to your slides.

Use high-quality graphics. The clip art that comes with PowerPoint is certainly convenient (and more visually appealing than it used to be), but there are online sources of free, high-resolution images that can have much greater visual impact. For instance, millions of photos are available for free, educational use on the photo-sharing site Flickr under the Creative Commons license.

Use appropriate charts. As analytical designer Edward Tufte likes to point out, PowerPoint is not a great tool at sharing complicated infographics. If you have a complicated chart or graphic to share with your students, it's often helpful to provide it to them as a handout. Simpler, more elegant charts often work better in PowerPoint. Think carefully about which kind of chart (pie, vertical bar, horizontal bar, line, etc.) will best communicate the idea you want to share with your students.

Choose your fonts well. Sans-serif fonts are often easier to read on slides than serif fonts. Too many different fonts in a slide or a presentation can be distracted, so try to limit yourself to one or two. Font size matters, too. Be sure that your fonts are large enough to be read at the back of the room. And if you're keeping your slides simple and limiting your use of text, you can usually use very large fonts.

Spend time in the slide sorter. This is the PowerPoint view that shows you up to 20 or 30 of your slides at once. As you start to design your presentation, this view is more useful than the default one-slide-at-a-time view for structuring and organizing your content.

For more thoughts on these and other suggestions by Garr Reynolds, along with example PowerPoint slides, see his Top Ten Slide Tips.

For an alternative to PowerPoint and Keynote, try Prezi, "the zooming presentation tool." Below you'll find a Prezi used during a spring 2010 CFT workshop titled "Engaging Students in Large Lecture Courses" that references many of the ideas shared here.

For some sound advice on using Prezi in the classroom, explore this Prezi from Paul Hill:

And for a little humor, view Peter Norvig's PowerPoint version of the Gettysburg Address (included below) to see how to ruin a great presentation with PowerPoint.

Interactive Lectures

"Given that students have an attention span of around 15 to 20 minutes and that university classes are scheduled for around 50 or 75 minutes, instructors must do something to control their students' attention. We recommend building a 'change-up' into your class to restart the attention clock."

The above quote is from " The 'Change-Up' in Lectures," an article by Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish. The article describes more than 20 practical strategies for breaking up lectures with activities that help keep students engaged and foster active learning. Here are just a few:

Write a Question - Instead of just saying, "Are there any questions?", ask all of your students to spend a minute or two reflecting on the lecture thus far and writing down one or two questions on paper.

Think-Pair-Share - After posing a sufficiently difficult question, instead of asking for volunteers to answer the question, have students think about the question silently for a minute. Then have them pair up and discuss the question with their partners. Then ask for students to share their perspectives with the whole class.

Finding Illustrative Quotations - Ask students to reread the text for the day to find quotations that support particular arguments. You might have all students address the same argument or different students look at different arguments.

Brainstorming - As a segue to a new topic, have students share any thought, idea, story, etc. that occurs to them in relation to the new topic. Record these ideas at the board without analyzing them. After the ideas have been surfaced, then move on to more critical discussion.

Practice Homework Problems - After lecturing on a particular type of problem, give students a problem to work at their seats that resembles the kinds of problems they'll see on their homework. After giving students a few minutes to try to work through the problem, discuss the problem with the class.

Here are a few other ideas for more interactive lectures:

Classroom Response Systems ("Clickers") - These are instructional technologies that allow instructors to collect and analyze student responses to multiple-choice (and sometimes free-response) questions during class.Typically, an instructor poses a question to a group of students, students submit their answers to the question using wireless handheld devices (often called "clickers") that beam radio frequency signals to a receiver connected to the instructor's computer, software on the instructor's computer displays a bar chart showing the distribution of responses, and the instructor uses these results to make "on the fly" teaching decisions that are responsive to student learning needs.For ideas on using clickers during lectures, see the CFT's teaching guide on clickers, as well as CFT assistant director Derek Bruff's blog on clickers.

Backchannel - The term "backchannel" refers to the student-to-student and student-to-instructor conversations that can occur during lectures and presentations. All lectures involve some form of backchannel, such as an instructor requesting questions from students or back-of-the-room chit chat between students. However, online tools such as Twitter and Google Moderator give instructors useful options for facilitating, directing, and leveraging backchannel conversations.Watch Monica Rankin's "Twitter Experiment" video below for a short introduction to her use of Twitter for backchannel in her history course at the University of Texas-Dallas. See Derek Bruff's blog posts on backchannel for additional ideas.

Just-in-Time Teaching (JiTT) - It's not uncommon to expect students to have "done the reading" in smaller seminar courses, laying the foundation for in-class discussions. This is less common in larger courses, but many faculty members in a variety of disciplines have adopted an approach called Just-in-Time Teaching that accomplishes this. The main idea is to have students read their textbooks before class, hold them accountable for doing so through pre-class or start-of-class quizzes, then design class sessions around "uncovering" and addressing student misconceptions-instead of "covering" the course material. For pedagogical and technological options for implementing Just-in-Time Teaching, see IUPUI's JiTT site.

Team-Based Learning (TBL) - This well-developed teaching method is similar to JiTT in that it involves leveraging pre-class student assignments. One core idea is that class time is spent having students work through problems or case studies in permanent teams, usually consisting of six students each. Students respond to questions about the problems or case studies individually, then respond to the same questions as a team. Student grades depend on both their individual performance on these quizzes as well as their team performance, providing incentives for students to engage with the material on their own as well as with their team. Class discussions are fueled by this individual and team work.For more information on TBL, see the University of British Columbia's TBL site or this 12-minute video on TBL from the University of Texas.

For additional ideas, see the following:

This teaching guide is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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by Derek Bruff Print Version Cite this guide: Bruff, D. (2010). Lecturing. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved [todaysdate] from https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/lecturing/. The Basics Effective Visuals Interactive Lectures The Basics "Lecturing is not simply a matter of standing in front of a class and reciting what you know.

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Stage Two – Determine Acceptable Evidence:

The second stage of backward design has instructors consider the assessments and performance tasks students will complete in order to demonstrate evidence of understanding and learning. In the previous stage, the instructor pinpointed the learning goals of the course. Therefore, they will have a clearer vision of what evidence students can provide to show they have achieved or have started to attain the goals of the course. Consider the following two questions at this stage:

1. How will I know if students have achieved the desired results?

2. What will I accept as evidence of student understanding and proficiency?

At this stage it is important to consider a wide range of assessment methods in order to ensure that students are being assess over the goals the instructor wants students to attain. Sometimes, the assessments do not match the learning goals, and it becomes a frustrating experience for students and instructors. Use the list below to help brainstorm assessment methods for the learning goals of the course.

Term papers.

Short-answer quizzes.

Free-response questions.

Homework assignments.

Lab projects.

Practice problems.

Group projects.

Among many others…

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Stage Two – Determine Acceptable Evidence:

The second stage of backward design has instructors consider the assessments and performance tasks students will complete in order to demonstrate evidence of understanding and learning. In the previous stage, the instructor pinpointed the learning goals of the course. Therefore, they will have a clearer vision of what evidence students can provide to show they have achieved or have started to attain the goals of the course. Consider the following two questions at this stage:

1. How will I know if students have achieved the desired results?

2. What will I accept as evidence of student understanding and proficiency?

At this stage it is important to consider a wide range of assessment methods in order to ensure that students are being assess over the goals the instructor wants students to attain. Sometimes, the assessments do not match the learning goals, and it becomes a frustrating experience for students and instructors. Use the list below to help brainstorm assessment methods for the learning goals of the course.

Term papers.

Short-answer quizzes.

Free-response questions.

Homework assignments.

Lab projects.

Practice problems.

Group projects.

Among many others…

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Instructor

Facilitator

Creator

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Reflection
This example shows a student teacher’s inner thoughts and reflections on her experiences as a teacher.

My cooperating teacher has the gift of gab.  It seems that most of the other excellent teachers I have worked with also have this gift.  This gift can be very important in the classroom because it brings learning to the level of the children.  Connecting book facts to real life situations empowers kids and helps build true knowledge.  Stories or anecdotes relating to the topic of study help bridge the gap between school life and outside of school life.  Children begin to see that their daily experiences are important and have connections to what they learn in school.

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Content management Conduct management Covenant management
Summary
The Summary section below is adapted from Schoolwide and Classroom Management: The Reflective Educator-Leader, by L.A. Froyen and A.M. Iverson, 1999, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 128-129, 193-209, 217, 221, 256-258.
According to specialists in the field of education, school and classroom management aims at encouraging and establishing student self-control through a process of promoting positive student achievement and behavior. Thus academic achievement, teacher efficacy, and teacher and student behavior are directly linked with the concept of school and classroom management.

Classroom management focuses on three major components: content management, conduct management, and covenant management. Each of these concepts is defined and presented with details in a list of observable elements in effective teaching practices.

Research shows that a high incidence of classroom disciplinary problems has a significant impact on the effectiveness of teaching and learning. In this respect, it has been found that teachers facing such issues fail to plan and design appropriate instructional tasks. They also tend to neglect variety in lesson plans and rarely prompt students to discuss or evaluate the materials that they are learning. In addition, student comprehension or seat work is not monitored on a regular basis.

In contrast, strong and consistent management and organizational skills have been identified as leading to fewer classroom discipline problems.

In this light, content management "does not refer to skills peculiar to teaching a particular subject but rather to those skills that cut across subjects and activities" (Froyen & Iverson, 1999, p. 128). Doyle stressed that the core of instructional management is gaining and maintaining student cooperation in learning activities (as cited in Froyen & Iverson, 1999, p. 128).

Related to content management, Kounin (as cited in Froyen & Iverson, 1999, p. 129) places a special emphasis on instructional management skills, sequencing and integrating additional instructional activities, and dealing with instruction-related discipline problems.

Conduct management is centered on one's beliefs about the nature of people. By integrating knowledge about human diversity (and individuality, at the same time) into a particular instructional philosophy, teachers could manage their classrooms in a better, more effective way.

Researchers have pointed out the importance of assisting students in positive behaviors. In planning classroom management, teachers should consider using an assertive communication style and behavior. In addition, they should always know what they want their students to do and involve them in the respective learning activities, under the general conditions of clearly and explicitly stated schoolwide and classroom rules.

According to Iverson and Froyen (1999), conduct management is essential to the creation of a foundation for "an orderly, task-oriented approach to teaching and learning" (p. 217), thus leading to granting students greater independence and autonomy through socialization.

An effective conduct management plan should also refer to teacher control and administration of consequences. The following components of such a plan are focused on in this summary: acknowledging responsible behaviors, correcting irresponsible and inappropriate behavior, ignoring, proximity control, gentle verbal reprimands, delaying, preferential seating, time owed, time-out, notification of parents/guardians, written behavioral contract, setting limits outside the classroom, and reinforcement systems. All of these components are presented so they can be identified in examples of best teaching practices.

Covenant management stresses the classroom group as a social system. Teacher and student roles and expectations shape the classroom into an environment conducive to learning. In other words, the culture of any given school is unique to that school. However, it is directly influenced by the culture of the larger community whose educational goals are to be met. A strong connection between school and community must be constantly revised and modified according to the requirements of societal dynamism. As schools become very diverse, teachers and students should become aware of how to use diversity to strengthen the school/classroom social group.

Quality schools are defined by teacher effectiveness and student achievement under the auspices of building strong interpersonal skills. In this light, teacher and student relationships are essential to ensuring a positive school/classroom atmosphere. Classroom management discipline problems can be dealt with either on an individual basis (between teacher and student) or by group problem solving (class meetings). As mutual trust builds up between teacher and students, the latter are gradually released from teacher supervision by becoming individually responsible. This is how both "educators and students become co-participants in the teaching-learning process, striving to make the most of themselves and their collective experience" (Froyen & Iverson, 1999, p. 256).
Reference
Froyen, L. A., & Iverson, A. M. (1999). Schoolwide and classroom management: The reflective educator-leader(3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

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Content management Conduct management Covenant management The Summary section below is adapted from Schoolwide and Classroom Management: The Reflective Educator-Leader, by L.A. Froyen and A.M. Iverson, 1999, Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, pp. 128-129, 193-209, 217, 221, 256-258.

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Evaluation
The same teacher uses an ongoing strategy of evaluation and performance assessment. This assessment serves as an instructional tool to help teachers meet students’ needs.  Using the evaluation form, the teacher continually checks students' understanding of the subject matter.

The evaluation form includes a chart divided into two sections to assess problem solving and communication.  The students receive from 0-3 points for their efforts.  Here is how the teacher would assess student skills:

Score |
Problem solving | Communication
0 | Totally misunderstood information | Explanation is not clear
1 | Understanding of material not yet at appropriate level | Explanations have some clarity
2 | Student understanding of task at appropriate level  | Explanations are mostly clear and logical
3 | Beyond appropriate level of understanding and analyzing the task | Explanations are logical and appropriate

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Instruction
For the same lesson, the teacher uses an instructional method that incorporates group work. The students are engaged in cooperative learning in groups of three, in which each of them has to take care of a physical component of an experiment. For instance, while doing the experiment, one student records the mass, the second one the distance, and the third one the force.  In this way, the teacher assures interaction between students, peer tutoring, and communication, which definitely increases students learning.

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Transformation
The same  fifth grade science teacher explains to her students the relationship between mass, force, and inertia. To demonstrate those concepts, the teacher provides the students with an analogy that transforms the idea into an example the students can understand.  She asks the students to determine if it would take more force to push her or a kindergarten student in a swing. She points out that it is easier to push someone once they are in motion.  The teacher then asks the students who would be easier to stop once they were in motion herself or the kindergarten student?  She relates their answers to the time it takes large trucks to stop; on a highway compared to compact cars.  Because several of the students are school crossing guards, the teacher personalizes her analogy by discussing what they learned in their crossing guard training about the force of different-sized vehicles

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The key to distinguishing the knowledge base of teaching lies inaa few 3 things:
At the intersection of content and pedagogy
in the teacher’s capacity to transform content knowledge  into forms that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variety of student abilities and backgrounds. Comprehended ideas must be transformed in some manner if they are to be taught. Transformations require some combination or ordering of the following processes

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To teach for understanding, a teacher needs to create a few central goals that are significant for both the teacher and the student. These goals need to be clear, stated explicitly, and posted in the classroom. For instance, a fifth grade teacher starts her lesson about friction, mass, and force by reminding her students what they studied last class to help them understand that they will add more information to their prior knowledge. The teacher tells the students that the first unit discussed was on motion and the second unit was on friction. Before introducing them to the third new unit about force, the teacher checks for students' understanding of the previous units.

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The expectation is that through acts of
teaching the teacher achieves a new understanding of purposes,
subject matter, students, teaching, and sel

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___5. Reflection: This process includes a series of steps, including
reviewing, reconstructing, reenacting, and critically analyzing
one’s teaching to improve.

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This process ensures that the teacher checks for
understanding and misunderstanding during interactive
teaching. As a result, the teacher evaluates his or her
own performance and makes adjustments for experience.

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___ 3. Instruction:  The variety of teaching acts includes the following:

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___ 3. Instruction:  The variety of teaching acts includes the following:

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___ Management
___ Presentations
___ Interactions
___ Group work
___ Discipline
___ Humor
___ Questioning
___ Discovery and inquiry instruction

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__ 2. Transformation: Comprehended ideas must be transformed in           some manner if they are to be taught.  Transformations          require some combinations or ordering of the following           processes: 

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__ 2. Transformation: Comprehended ideas must be transformed in           some manner if they are to be taught.  Transformations          require some combinations or ordering of the following           processes: 

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_

___ Preparation (of the given text material)
___ Representation of the ideas in the form of analogies,
metaphors
___ Instructional selections from among an array of teaching
methods and models
___ Adaptation to the characteristics of the students
___ Tailoring the adaptations to the specific students in the
classroom

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Pedagogical content knowledge identifies the distinctive bodies of knowledge for teaching. It represents the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular topics, problems or issues are organized, represented, and adapted to the diverse interests and abilities of learners, and presented for instruction. Pedagogical content knowledge is the category most likely to distinguish the understanding of the content specialist from that of the pedagogue"

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Through acts of teaching that are "reasoned" and "reasonable," the teacher achieves new comprehension of the educational purposes, the subjects taught, the students, and the processes of pedagogy themselves

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Students (the teacher’s audience) are another important element for the teacher to consider while using a pedagogical model.  A skillful teacher figures out what students know and believe about a topic and how learners are likely to “hook into” new ideas. Teaching in ways that connect with students also requires an understanding of differences that may arise from culture, family experiences, developed intelligences, and approaches to learning. Teachers need to build a foundation of pedagogical learner knowledge

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This process includes reviewing, reconstructing, reenacting, and critically analyzing one’s own teaching abilities and then grouping these reflected explanations into evidence of changes that need to be made to become a better teacher. This is what a teacher does when he or she looks back at the teaching and learning that has occurred–reconstructs, reenacts, and recaptures the events, the emotions, and the accomplishments.  Lucas (as cited in Ornstein et al.,  2000) argued that reflection is an important part of professional development.  All teachers must learn to observe outcomes and determine the reasons for success or failure. Through reflection, teachers focus on their concerns, come to better understand their own teaching behavior, and help themselves or colleagues improve as teachers. Through reflective practices in a group setting, teachers learn to listen carefully to each other, which also gives them insight into their own work

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Teachers need to think about testing and evaluation as an extension of instruction, not as separate from the instructional process. The evaluation process includes checking for understanding and misunderstanding during interactive teaching as well as testing students’ understanding at the end of lessons or units. It also involves evaluating one’s own performance and adjusting for different circumstances.

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Comprising the variety of teaching acts, instruction includes many of the most crucial aspects of pedagogy: management, presentations, interactions, group work, discipline, humor, questioning, and discovery and inquiry instruction.

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The key to distinguishing the knowledge base of teaching lies at the intersection of content and pedagogy in the teacher’s capacity to transform content knowledge  into forms that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variety of student abilities and backgrounds. Comprehended ideas must be transformed in some manner if they are to be taught. Transformations require some combination or ordering of the following processes:

1. Preparation (of the given text material), which includes the process of critical interpretation

2. Representation of the ideas in the form of new analogies and metaphors  (Teachers'  knowledge, including the way they speak about teaching, not only includes references to what teachers “should” do, it also includes presenting the material by using figurative language and metaphors

3. Instructional selections  from among an array of teaching methods and models

4. Adaptation of student materials and activities to reflect the characteristics of student learning styles

5. Tailoring the adaptations to the specific students in the classroom

described this as the process of fitting the represented material to the characteristics of the students. The teacher must consider the relevant aspects of students’ ability, gender, language, culture, motivations, or prior knowledge and skills that will affect their responses to different forms of presentations and representations.

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To teach is to first understand :
purposes
subject matter structures
ideas within and outside the discipline. Teachers need to understand what they teach and, when possible, to understand it in several ways.
Comprehension of purpose is very important.

We engage in teaching to achieve the following educational purposes:

To help students gain literacy

To enable students to use and enjoy their learning experiences

To enhance students’ responsibility to become caring people

To teach students to believe and respect others, to contribute to the well-being of their community

To give students the opportunity to learn how to inquire and discover new information

To help students develop broader understandings of new information

To help students develop the skills and values they will need to function in a free and just society

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___ 1. Comprehension: To teach is to understand.

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___ 1. Comprehension: To teach is to understand.

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___ Purposes
___ Subject-matter structures
___ Ideas within and outside the discipline

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To help all students learn, teachers need several kinds of knowledge about learning. They need to think about what it means to learn different kinds of material for different purposes and how to decide which kinds of learning are most necessary in different contexts. Teachers must be able to identify the strengths and weaknesses of different learners and must have the knowledge to work with students who have specific learning disabilities or needs. Teachers need to know about curriculum resources and technologies to connect their students with sources of information and knowledge that allow them to explore ideas, acquire and synthesize information, and frame and solve problems. And teachers need to know about collaboration–how to structure interactions among students so that more powerful shared learning can occur; how to collaborate with other teachers; and how to work with parents to learn more about their children and to shape supportive experiences at school and home