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When you give a lecture in Higher Education, you are often talking to at least two classes of students, often many more. For example, I lecture to groups of between seventy and 200 students. It’s a good way of getting a lot of information over to a lot of people very quickly. 

However, having said that, the bigger the crowd, the slower you have to speak, in fact, even if you are wearing a microphone. Each member of the audience needs to feel that you are engaging with them. You need to get some eye contact even with the outer edges of the back row.

Also, I find, you’re mainly giving them a snippet of information and then pointers to where they can find out much more information about the given topic.

I generally start off with an introduction, outlining what I am going to talk about. For an hour’s lecture – which is actually fifty minutes long, in fact, because you have to finish ten minute before the hour – I like to have about five sections, leaving just under ten minutes each. The last section is usually a set of questions which students should be able to answer if they have understood the lecture.

I use a variety of media: my voice, PowerPoint, handouts and also occasionally movie clips, sound files and web pages. However, the lecture must be deliverable even if the technology fails. All of the materials are then available on BlackBoard, our Virtual Learning Environment. These various forms have slightly different content, though they cross-reference and build towards a harmonious whole. I also make sure that the students who attend the lecture are rewarded – I tell them something there and then that is not made available any other way. Sometimes that may just be a joke. Other times it is a really thought-provoking piece of information.  

As I deliver the lecture, I have notes, very similar to my PowerPoint presentation. However, I have the extra information added on and the timings. Oddly one big lecture theatre I work in does not have a clock facing the lecturer. A sin! The smaller one does.    

It’s actually a very satisfying creative exercise, preparing for a lecture. Delivering it is also fun, if you’re well prepared.