Your notes

There are plenty of resources available on the web and elsewhere to give students guidance on how to take notes in lectures and other sessions, but what about teachers?

I certainly remember lectures at university in which the lecturer came in with a dusty old file, spent a couple of minutes finding the right page, and then read to us—hardly looking up—for an hour. Well, I don't remember them very well, because I was asleep for most of the time.

If your material is really technical, there is no way you can deliver it without notes, but finding a method which suits you is largely a matter of trial and error.

However, if the only way you can deliver a lecture is by reading detailed notes, just think what it is like for the students who have to listen to it. Consider putting any detail which they really must get right on a handout or on the VLE.

Crucial both to your delivery and to the students' understanding is communicating the shape of the lecture, and the headings of the topics.

Some suggestions:

"Trial and error" or preferably trial, reflection, theorising and experimenting

Really, these techniques are more symptom than substance—if you are prepared to go to this trouble you are either very nervous, or thinking seriously about the audience's learning—or both. It is that act of doing it which probably matters more than the final product.  

 

To reference this page copy and paste the text below:

ATHERTON J S (2009) Learning and Teaching; [On-line] UK: Available: Accessed:

(Note that if you are using Internet Explorer, and it is doing its "nanny" thing, the full reference will not display. There will be a bar across the top of the screen advising you of "blocked content". Click on it and select "Allow blocked content" and confirm in the pop-up box. I know it's a pain, but we're stuck with it.)

Original material by James Atherton: last up-dated 10 February 2010

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.


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