How do you avoid lecturing all day, every day?

[David Knuffke]

Tell us some of the things that you do to avoid lecturing constantly. Then we can start to do them to.

Me: I make an oath on the first day of school that I will never lecture for more than 1 period per day of AP Biology (we have 2 periods every day). And I stick to it. This makes it possible to do other things. It also makes students take a little bit more responsibility for their learning. Win-Win.

Plus, I never "lecture." What we do is probably best termed a "formalized discussion"

[Luann Lee]

Its really early and I haven't had coffee yet, but off the top of my head:

1. After you have introduced active transport and passive transport, role-play the harts of particles in active and passive transport. Kids draw names for a membrane part (phospholipid, carrier protein, etc.) and particles to move across the membrane (CO2, bacteria, enzyme, etc.) You can always have 2 people play a carrier protein etc, and need several phospholipids). Everyone gets 10 minutes or so to research his role, needing to know where to go across or what particles to let across, size, how the crossing occurs, etc. Then have a "play" in which each particle one at a time approaches the membrane in the proper place and describes himself and how he plans to cross the membrane. If he is correct, the membrane lets him through and explains why and how.

2. Building with play-doh (TM) We did different enzymes and substrates. I think I uploaded a photo.

I'll think of more...... I hope others do too :-)

[Sean Nash]

Uh huh. It is funny how actually talking with kids... in a more or less structured protocol... is knee-jerked by some folks as evil.

I think it is probably a natural progression of the infusion of sound instructional practice into the land of content content content. When on a big mission like this, it is easy to lump anything sounding like previous practice as less-than-savory.

I couldn't agree more that I don't think what I do could be properly called "lecture." That sounds pretty one sided. Erin recently found out while creating her first screencasts via Jing... that when you are talking directly AT a potential audience... one that is incapable of responding to, or asking self-generated questions... things go really fast.

She created a couple of screencasts that took about 8 minutes each. 8 minutes. If she were there in the room, leading those discussions... they would have run 30 or 40 minutes each. Quite telling I'd say.

You're right... I think the word lecture has come to mean "talking at kids." Therefore, I hate the term.

That said- as I mentioned in this post, I didn't come direct with a lesson this year until exactly October 24th. And that was a BIG record -not easy to do in any way. But my students have now bought into such an approach.

Interesting topic. Thanks for posting it.

[Mike Pilliod]

Agreed. Discussion has been shown to be a wonderful way for people to learn. But there does need to be some prior knowledge, doesn't there? I find that simply having kids understand some of the definitions for terms ahead of time helps a lot. That way I can formulate questions to pose to the class and discussion can go from there with me facilitating.

Of course this year I have only 1 brave soul in AP Biology! This is actually quite fun! We are lab partners, we talk about all the "stuff" of Biology and have a grand 'ole time! If you ever get a chance to teach 5 students or less...do it!

[David Williams]

Making students take responsibility for their own learning is something I am really trying to push this year - partly for the reason mentioned above, that it avoids me having to listen to the sound of my own voice in a lecture every day. But also because I have been becoming aware that we (or maybe it's just me) fail to help them realise just how much they actually do know already. Most of them forget what we study from year to year, so just a simple revision of prior knowledge is often a starting point for a prolonged question and answer session. The aim of this is to help them pull together knowledge from different subject areas that they have compartmentalised in their minds e.g. helping them to link what they know about the properties of water molecules, with water flow during transpiration, and then linking that to what they know about adaptations of xylem tissue etc. New, or more detailed, information can be added on top of what they already know, and they have reviewed several topics, plus made new, meaningful connections between them, building up and reinforcing the bigger picture of biology in their minds. I love it when they get excited as they realise that they do actually understand all these topics!
Inevitably the question and answer session spins off into a discussion prompted by one of the students, and it's great to see them discuss it amongst themselves, encouraging and helping each other. When this happens, I can usually take a back seat.
As a review, the following lesson, I randomly pick a name and that student has to give us all a summary of the previous topic - now they are doing the lecturing! Plus it ensures that they are keeping up with the subject material regularly, another essential skill I find lacking in many students.

[Diane DeLoux]

For me lecture has become something that I have really become better at and yet students have become less better at...my experience lately has been as I give my lecture and I stare into the class...they are quiet, busy taking notes but I sense a "zoning out." My kids who are science geeks soak it all up and love it but it is becoming more the majority that are going through the motions without a clue about what I am talking about. It feels to me that kids are using lecture time as a time to not have to think. The most effective lecture time in terms of getting kids to make connections has been when they have been given an assignment, get stuck and realize that the information necessary is important to them. I watch my colleagues who use lecture quite a bit and see the same dynamic and I think to myself..."with all we need to teach them and what they have to learn...shouldn't we be using our time more effectively in the classroom?" Discussions do require knowledge on their part and a high motivation for engaging in the learning....I truly struggle with this. I am trying to find activities that challenge their thinking and learning so that they feel they NEED the lecture to accomplish this task.

[Kate D. Holland]

I graduated college in 2004 with a Bachelor's degree in Biology, Marine Biology, and Environmental Science. I had some professors who mostly lectured and some that did a lot of labs and experiments or projects. As a student I enjoyed both, but I remember enjoying the lectures because it was a time to "zone out" early in the morning. I always took good notes, did great on the test, got good grades...and now I can't remember any of it. The classes that we had to do research projects or we participated more in class I can remember...I actually learned the subject. Now I am trying to get a job as a science teacher. I am currently in school working towards my teaching license. I am taking a Technology in Education class and have learned lots of great ways to involve students. You can find ideas for almost anything on the internet. Some ideas are virtual fieldtrips, getting activities from different websites (like this one), or using online collaboration tools (like Google Docs) to get your students to work together on a project or you can post information and they can respond (something different that just the normal lecture and notetaking). I also think that you picking a topic and letting the students do research and then present their ideas is another great way to get involved. I wish you luck and let me know if you find any great ideas for getting students involved.