By Jose Curiel-Sosa
I am a lecturer in Mechanical Engineering with over fifteen years teaching experience in higher education. I am interested in innovative teaching and learning approaches to enhance student experience. One of my ever-present concerns is how to keep students engaged during a lecture when the content may be difficult to understand or assimilate for whatever reason.
I taught at the beginning of my academic career with what I thought a lecture should be. That meant delivery of content according to a tight schedule. The result in terms of student experience and feedback was not ok. I tried to find out what I could do to improve it. I started to research teaching literature. In particular, active learning works were an eye opener for me. Using active learning might make students engage and act more proactively during lectures.
Detection of problems came first and, the first problem was the realisation that student attention drops sharply after about fifteen minutes of starting a lecture. In general, students cannot keep the same level of concentration for longer than that period of time.
Here is when active learning can make a difference. By using an active learning task at those attention-drop time points, students can re-engage and lift their concentration. I call it Timing Active Learning to distinguish it from other approaches based on active learning.
We typically have 50 minute lectures at the University of Sheffield. So, I decided to encourage students with active learning tasks every 15, 10, and 5 minutes. This was to acknowledge the fact that periods of attention shorten towards the end of the lecture. Active learning tasks can be one or several of:
Quiz or polling by using digital response systems (DRS) such as TurningPoint. The students can answer using smartphones or laptops with the installed DRS app. This allows me to detect - in real time! - whether the point in question was understood or needed further clarification.
Discussion in pairs. This can help students analyse the difference of views they may have with respect to the topic in question. Overall, when they realise they may assimilate points in different ways. The discussion might be followed by discussion with the whole class or/and by response via DRS.
Small problem-solving question. This was very helpful in some of my modules. Small problem-solving questions permit students to finish the class with a sense of achievement, as the theoretical aspects are applied in a practical context, therefore, improving the understanding of difficult concepts. Then, the resulting answer can be submitted in real time by means of DRS. Students mentioned how much they valued this for some difficult topics. In particular, this would allow them to finish the lecture with a sensation of accomplished tasks and gained study time.
A video illustrating the point made in the lecture. This would motivate students about the specific subject.
Since I introduced timing active learning, students have mentioned how much they enjoy this lecture style and the positive impact it has had on their learning and motivation. So, if you think your module/s can benefit from using timing active learning or simply want to discuss it, please let me know (j.curiel-sosa@sheffield.ac.uk). I am always happy to share further details about it!