Susan Polick

HI Stacey, Thanks for your post to the forum. At my college, we actually have a Faculty Development seminar called " Burn the Podium!" . Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan

Susan Polick

Stacey Mears

I think lecturing can be boring if used in an ineffective way, such as all the time. I try to vary my lecturing so that the students are always engaged in learning in different ways.

Susan Polick

Hi Ernest, Thanks for your post to gthe forum. I think that using the frequest breaks that punctuate your lecture and break it into "packets" is excellent! I would also probably give out handouts that clearly show the lecture content broken up accordingly. Thanks for sharing a great idea! Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan

Susan Polick

Ernest Mirando

I teach Pharmacology in a sixty hour, five week module with three hour classes that run on Monday through Thursday. There is a tremendous amount of material to be covered and the material is content intensive. Because of this, I am forced to do quite a bit of lecturing generally using power point presentations.

One of the biggest obstacles that I encounter seems to be student attention span (especially among students with ADHD type problems). Because of this, I often break the class period up by giving a series of shorter breaks throughout the session rather than just a single longer break at the half-way point. While the breaks give the students a period to "air their heads out", I also try to use them as break-points that might serve to "compartmentalize" what they are learning into "packets". My thoughts are that the breaks might serve as frames of reference for the recall of information. Any merit to this practice/technique? Thanks

Susan Polick

Hi Maria, I certainly have found that lecturing on it's own (i.e. without visuals and/or hands on) is not very effective.

Best wishes for continued success in your teaching career. Susan

Susan Polick