A question I am frequently asked by colleagues is, ‘How can I engage my large cohorts of students?’ My normal go to is to refer to the technology and say ‘Have you tried using Menti moments? You can set up a leaderboard and interject quick quiz questions to keep students engaged and it’s all anonymous’ But then I began to think, is this really what students want, another app to master?
A few days ago I happened to come across a talk by Kathleen Quinlan. She was sharing how she had observed 12 first year undergraduate lectures and conducted a survey to investigate what made students interested in their lectures? 706 students responded to her post-lecture survey. Among other questions, students were asked to rank different aspects of the lecture experience, such as novelty of the lecture, how much it made them think, its usefulness and various other factors.
The results showed that the greatest effect on students engagement was their perceptions of their lecturer, in other words how enthusiastic, knowledgeable and accessible students thought they were – the personal element.
So how can we build relationships in our lectures? Well, here are some of the takeaways from Quinlan’s talk that we can consider when we next stand in front of our large cohorts of students:
- Is there a place for you to use your body to explain a point, such as showing the angle of something with your arms?
- Can you create a story around the content you are teaching to enable your students to connect to it more?
- Can you vary your voice as you lecture to add emphasis or create interest?
- Have you tried stepping away from the podium and moving towards your students to connect to them?
In addition to these ideas Quinlan also touched on points that resonate with building relationships with the subject matter (Quinlan, 2016)
- Promote engagement by giving students a problem to solve or a controversial question
- Use authentic examples to show the relevance and usefulness of our content
- Be sure to bring in new information or something to challenge students
- Be aware of the level of our students, so we can pitch our content right
If you would like to read more about the study:
Quinlan, K.M., 2019. What triggers students’ interest during higher education lectures? Personal and situational variables associated with situational interest. Studies in Higher Education, 44(10), pp.1781-1792.
You can find further case studies on the BILT Blog.
References:
Quinlan, K.M., 2016. How emotion matters in four key relationships in teaching and learning in higher education. College Teaching, 64(3), pp.101-111.
