Supermentoring iN praCTICE

TEACHING

In many ways, the beginning of class is important for the whole class. In the first seconds of the class and actually also in the minutes just before class, the students’ impression of the lecturer is determined in a very quick and unconscious process (called interpretation). This impression decides whether the students have confidence in the lecturer and, thus, in the information s/he gives. In other words, the lecturer must radiate competence and kindness in order for him/her to create a positive learning atmosphere for the students: Positive emotions are crucial for good learning outcomes.

The lecturer should stick to the 45-minute lessons. In fact, 45 minutes is the maximum amount of time that an adult can keep his/her attention; and the students need a real break after each lesson. Therefore, short breaks should be inserted three times per lesson (after approx. 10, 20, 30 minutes) to strengthen the attention of the students. The breaks may be mere time-outs, but they may also be think-pair-shares or voting with peer instruction; the latter two types lead directly to reflection, whereas the time-out leaves it to the students to decide what they would like to do.

As to the students’ attention: A lesson always falls into three phases. First, we have primetime 1 with a high level of attention followed by (i) down-time with little or no attention and (ii) primetime 2 with increasing attention that, however, does not reach the level of primetime 1. From phase to phase there are of course gradual transitions, each phase per se being 10-15 minutes long.

What has been taught during primetime 1 is retained best, partly because of the high attention, partly because what is said here will usually be repeated during the whole class. What the lecturer has introduced during downtime is not retained or only retained in fragments, whereas the contents of primetime 2 are retained to a certain degree, but only to a certain degree: Attention has risen, but the topics of this phase will not be repeated much. This is why it is important that the students work with the topics after class.

If a lecturer chooses to go on after 45 minutes with no break (quite a few actually do that), downtime will comprise almost 40 % of the total time, and even though the use of breaks will shorten this period somewhat, much time will be wasted. Again, the large break after 45 minutes is important. If the contents are particularly difficult, working with blocks of 20 minutes followed by breaks of 5-10 minutes is recommended; thus downtime will only comprise 2 minutes, 10 %, and this gap can easily be overcome by the use of activities like the ones mentioned above.

At the beginning of class, the structure of the class/classes need to be presented in an agenda. The intended learning outcomes should also be stated (formulated on the basis of the SOLO taxonomy): The brain – and its owner – generally learns best when it knows what the goal is and can predict the direction that must be taken.

During class, the lecturer should refer to the agenda and the intended learning outcomes as much as possible so that the students know where they are right now, and what has been completed: This is important in order to support their working memory (in practice, their thinking process at any given point of time) and to support them in storing the information processed as new knowledge in their long-term memory.

The performance of the lecturer is often not considered, the logic being that the content is the most important factor of the teaching.

Of course, the content of a lesson should be flawless, but the lecturer’s general behaviour is in fact a crucial factor:

• In the first seconds of class, and actually also in the minutes just before the beginning of class, the students’ impression of the lecturer is determined in a very quick and unconscious process (called interpretation); this impression decides whether the students have confidence in the lecturer and, thus, in the information s/he gives.
• The engagement of the lecturer (or the absence of engagement, for that matter) affects the students – not least due to the activity of the so-called mirror neurons; this factor is, in other words, neuro-psychologically based.
• The behaviour and the engagement of the lecturer is important for establishing a positive learning atmosphere – positive emotions are one of the corner stones of successful teaching and learning.

See also ‘Gestures, facial expressions, pose, motion’ and the video ‘The body and the voice in the classroom’.

Gestures, facial expressions, pose, and motion are important parts of our communication and should therefore be utilised in a targeted way during teaching.

From a communicative point of view, body language should be used to stress and modify what is said; but bodily expressions always play a role in how the students view the lecturer and their attitude to what s/he teaches.

Furthermore, body language contributes to creating a feeling of presence and attentiveness. Thus, it strengthens the positive learning atmosphere, and positive emotions are very important for a successful learning experience.

Finally, body language is important to attract the students’ attention: It is maintained and supported through constant variation.

See also ‘The language of the teacher: Language is important’ and the video ‘The body and the voice in the classroom’.

Interaction with the students is important both in lectures and in seminars (small group teaching). In the latter type, for obvious reasons, interaction is more frequent than in lectures, but also here the teacher should strive to involve the students as much as possible.

A basic form of interaction is when the lecturer talks to and not in front of the students, for instance through signposting with remarks like As many of you already know…, During the break some of you asked…, Let’s look at this…, Last time one of you pointed out to me that… This is a very banal, but at the same time very efficient tool: It makes the students feel that they are being seen, heard and taken seriously.

The interaction can also be more direct, for instance through question-answer sessions. In this context, a deliberate technique is a crucial. Use the 7-seconds technique:

• Ask your question – formulate it precisely and in a short form. You may want to write it on the blackboard or on a slide if it is complex.
• Let 7 seconds pass – ignore the students who (always) put up their hand immediately.
• If you do not see a suitable amount of hands, repeat the question in exactly the same way as the first time: the same words, the same intonation, the same pace.
• Let another 7 seconds pass, and if you still do not see enough hands, you may give further background and elaborate the question.

The thing is that we stress the students by posing quick questions and expecting quick answers. It gets even worse when we realise that our question might have been put differently and then start reformulating it or offering further information. This hampers the students’ working memory (their thinking processes at any given point of time): It has only a limited capacity and is easily disturbed; and talking while the students are thinking makes it difficult for them to concentrate and think of an answer.

The interaction may also take place in a more indirect way: through the performance of the lecturer. The openness that a lecturer can radiate through his/her body language, makes the students feel that they part of a learning process and not empty vessels that must be filled.

Write full sentences, not only keywords: The presentation should provide guidelines for the students here and now and when they prepare for their exam. Furthermore, the students should be able to read the presentation during the lecture if they have lost the thread and want to quickly get back on track; in such a case, keywords alone are useless.

Use an adequate font and font size:

• The font should be a sans serif font, without ‘feet’ (as e.g. Times New Roman has feet). Verdana is a good choice. It was originally developed for screen use with a good width and space between the individual letters (in contrast to e.g. Arial).
• The size should be at least 24.

Do not overload the slides. Rather, distribute information over more slides. As a rule of thumb, you should never have more than 5 bullet points per slide in order to accommodate the working memory of the students. In this respect, Verdana in size 24 is a good choice, for it leaves space only for 4-5 bullet points.

Use animations on the individual slides so that each bullet point appears separately. This lets the students focus on what is relevant right now – again the feeble working memory is taken into consideration.

Avoid animations at transitions between slides – they only disturb.

Use the same layout for all slides. Limit the amount of colours to two: one for the background and one for other purposes (e.g. stressing information). Colours are information just like text, and they will be processed by the working memory, too. Avoid blue letters on a white background – blue letters are difficult to see. Use black letters.

Pictures and all types of graphics should be exploited as much as possible – both as individual slides and on slides next to the text. Pictures are processed by the brain as one and only one information unit even though they contain lots of details. Thus, they support the working memory: The many pieces of information are gathered in one information unit. They also support the long-term memory: It is easier to retrieve one unit with lots of details than to retrieve the details one by one.

Lecturers often discuss whether they should publish their slides before or after class. The argument against uploading them before class is that the students may then stay away from class, or that they do not take notes if the slides are available beforehand.

This is hardly true: If teaching as such does not deliver more than what can be read in a handout, the lecturer has a substantial problem. A presentation should only state the key points that the lecturer discusses in more detail and puts into perspective. Just going through the textbook material should be avoided – the students can and should read this themselves. Furthermore, the lecturer should not deliver solutions to problems that the students could have worked on/solved before class.

As to note taking, not all students take notes but learn well through reading (slides) and listening; many then write down what is important to them when working with the subject after class.

Publishing handouts before class can prevent the senseless note taking that we see repeatedly when students write each and every word that the lecturer utters in ‘shorthand’. Having the basic information in a handout, they can complement the contents in a far more constructive way. In English terms, they go from ‘note taking’ (senselessly writing in ‘shorthand’) to ‘note making’ (synthetising information).

A proper blackboard order is a must.

First, the handwriting: Only use capital letters when something should be stressed. Otherwise, use normal handwriting. There should be a little space between the individual letters, and the size should equal a handbreadth: around 10 centimetres.

Second, the use of the blackboard: Divide the blackboard into parts that are filled one by one. When there is no more space in the last part, the information in the first part is wiped out, and you start all over again – that is, writing in part one, wiping out and writing in part two, etc. Thus, the students get sufficient time to write notes themselves and are not left with unfinished sentences and fragments in their own notes.

If the lecturer does not need to use the blackboard continuously, but only for key terms and keywords now and then, s/he should definitely wipe out what has been written already when there is no need for it anymore. If things like this remain on the blackboard, it is noise to the students, and it takes away their attention to what is going on afterwards – often such key terms/keywords are written all over the board where there was some free space, and this does not make it easier for the students to follow the flow of information.

If there are whiteboards in the classroom, green pens should be avoided. Green on a white background is more or less impossible to see and read. Instead, use black or blue and red for underlining. Bring your own pens – and chalk – to be on the safe side.

Active learning is a key concept in today’s university pedagogy. Well, in pedagogy in general. It is crucial to all types of teaching that the student get an opportunity to try out the knowledge s/he is building up or has just built up.

In this context, activity means reflection. Reflection may take place several times during class in the form of time-outs, think-pair-shares, voting with peer-instruction, etc. Many activities can be supported by IT tools, for inspiration see https://treat.au.dk/.

As a minimum, activities should be used three times during a lecture after 10, 20, and 30 minutes – this in order for the students to keep their attention level high. ‘See starting and getting through class’.