Preparing for Lectures: The Teachers’ Perspective

For those of us new to lecturing, preparing for our first lecture can seem like a daunting task but, as with anything, preparation and time is key to ensuring your first lecture not only goes seamlessly, but is an enjoyable process too.

I have been lecturing for a few years now and remember this feeling quite clearly, so I wanted to share some advice on what helped me prepare for my lectures.

Firstly, it is worth making a plan of what content you would like to cover in each lecture, and thus a plan of what research needs to be conducted when preparing your notes. This will help guide how much content you include and will ensure you cover all key elements needed for a particular topic, without overwhelming the students with information (see my previous blog on lecture content for more information on why less is more in such teaching environments); a carefully constructed plan will help you to avoid this by guiding the structure of your lecture. Undertaking research when preparing your lectures is also useful in ensuring that you provide your students with the most up to date information on your topic, something that particularly applies to my teaching of environmental law. For example, I conduct research ahead of my lectures on flooding to update examples of floods in the local area that have taken place in the UK to ensure my lectures are contemporary and also providing the most up to date knowledge on the topic. This, in turn, allows you to gather content which is relatable to the students and thus more likely to encourage active learning by linking such new knowledge to knowledge they may have already come across in the media.

Once you have conducted all relevant research, the next step I would recommend is to create a set of lecture notes to help guide the delivery of your content. The more you lecture the same topic over the years, the less notes you may need, but they are particularly useful in the early days nonetheless. These notes can take the form of a detailed speech of things you would like to say, or can be as simple as a few bullet points that you can turn to when progressing through the lecture. I definitely find my notes useful for signposting key information and knowledge that I would like to communicate to my students, and they also offer me some peace of mind that, if I go off track or my mind goes blank, I can easily get back into the swing of the lecture delivery. It is always useful to go over your notes ahead of any lectures to ensure you are familiar with them and can access key information quickly when needed on the day. For example, when going over my notes in preparation for a lecture, I like to highlight or underline particular concepts or quotes that I would like to ensure I draw attention to. Similarly, going over your speech or notes ahead of the lecture gives you time to practice your delivery, and ensure you are able to say all that you need within the timeframe you will have on the day, and thus gives you an opportunity to make any amendments as needed.

Similarly, when preparing your lecture content, always consider whether your content is engaging and interactive to allow your students to undertake active learning within your lectures. For example, you can add interactive learning tasks to your lectures, such as group work, which will allow the students to not simply be transmissive, but engage with the content and knowledge.

To further aid student learning in your lectures, it is also worth creating accompanying learning materials that they can use during the lectures and for revision purposes. For example, for all of my lectures, I provide my students with a lecture handout which details key reading for them to undertake, as well as a structure of how the lecture will run, with relevant information provided under each section to aid the student’s ability to follow the progress of the lecture content. I also provide PowerPoint slides to allow students to see core information on the screen as I progress through the content, and I aim to ensure these slides are also engaging and interactive by including videos, images, and group work tasks that I would like the students to undertake in the sessions. The slides are not simply filled with information, but contain a few key sources and images to keep the students engaged. All materials are provided ahead of the lectures to give students time to become familiar with them and undertake any reading or preparation should they wish.

My next piece of advice is to become familiar with your teaching environment before your lecture takes place. For example, it is useful to visit your lecture hall to become familiar with its layout, size, and any technology that is available within it for you to use. For example, the university may provide microphones, and it is always useful to know where these are and how to use them before your lecture; it eases the process on the day and prevents you feeling any additional stress ahead of your lecture. Likewise, you may notice that a screen is provided where you can share resources with the students, and if you are already familiar with the layout of the lecture hall, you can decide if a more interactive session can take place; for example, if the room has movable chairs, you could conduct group work within the session too. Visiting the hall before your lecture also has the added benefit of aiding your time management. For example, if you find that the lecture is located on the other side of campus, you can prepare enough time to arrive and set things up, instead of rushing on the day. Likewise, it allows you to prepare when to finish a lecture in order to give yourself enough time to attend another session you may have directly after.

Lastly, my final piece of advice similarly concerns being as prepared as you can be. I would recommend making a list of items that you will need to take with you to the lecture, including a water bottle, pen, notes, textbooks and anything else you may need, as well as ensuring that you also take the time to prepare a contingency plan if things do not go the way you anticipated. For example, have a plan on your approach to running over your lecture time; consider whether you will record the remainder of the session or if you will reduce the duration of your next lecture to allow you to cover the content you were unable to the previous week. Likewise, consider if you would be prepared if the technology in the lecture hall was to fail; would you be able to continue with the lecture? Or would it be better to move the session to another day and time? The more prepared we are, the better our experience of lectures will go!

Accordingly, although lectures may seem daunting for first time lecturers, you can ensure that they go as smooth as possible by being as prepared as possible before you step into that lecture hall for the first time.