Activating Your Lecture Series: Topic Intro | Part 1 | Part 2
Activating Lectures
Part 1:
Incorporating Active Learning into a Large Lecture Course
Overview
Active learning practices can boost student engagement with course material, enhance learning, and increase performance on assessments in all fields. Integrating active learning practices into your high enrollment lecture sections also helps to personalize learning and build a learning community among students and instructors. Some examples of recent research findings on the impact of active learning include:
- In a study encompassing many types of STEM courses, Theobald et al. (2020) found that across many types of STEM courses, active learning reduces achievement gaps on exams by 33% and narrows gaps in course passing rates by 45%.
- Reimer et al. (2016) found active learning to be particularly beneficial to first-generation college students in STEM courses, boosting both retention and passing rates.
- Gray et al. (2010) found students who used ‘hands-on’ active learning outperformed the control group, who passively received a lecture, on a concept test by a mean of 68%.
How can I start pairing active learning activities with my lecture?
Break up lectures with active learning activities like pair or group-work, problem-solving, or low-stakes assessments. Lectures are effective for conveying information, but not for learning outcomes that require higher-order thinking, or inspiring new interests, values, or behavioral skills in students (Bligh, 2000). Implementing a format like Smith et al.’s (2005) bookend-strategy (Figure 1) can help organize your time in the classroom to cover content and accomplish learning goals:
Using this bookend-strategy to organize your lecture into 10- to 12-minute portions followed by 3- to 4-minute active learning activities should provide a balance between supplying students with new concepts and allowing them to work with those concepts in groups or on their own.
Suggestions for several active learning activities to incorporate into your lectures:
| Activities | Descriptions | Example Activities |
| Think-Pair-Share | Prompt students with a discussion question or problem to solve. Allow students time to first think individually about their response or solution. Students then pair with a neighbor to discuss their ideas or solutions to the prompt. After students have worked with their neighbors, groups can share with a larger group or with the entire class. | After lecturing on the process of natural selection in populations, students are given a scenario that may or may not meet the requirements for natural selection to occur. Students are given 2 minutes to think and take notes on whether or not each scenario meets the requirements for natural selection, 2 minutes to pair and discuss their thoughts with a neighbor, and 2 minutes to share with the class. |
| Learning Cell | Have students complete a reading or problem set before class and write questions that deal with the major points of the assignment. Then in class, students pair up. Partner 1 asks their questions of Partner 2, who answers them. If necessary, Partner 1 corrects their answers, or adds to them to make them more complete. Then repeat for the other pair member. | After reading a chapter that focuses on ethics in human subjects’ research, students compose questions that deal with points they’d like clarified (i.e., “What does the Internal Review Board process entail?”), or central concerns of the chapter, (i.e., “In what situations do the benefits to research subjects outweigh the risks?”). Students pose these questions to one another in class and in the ensuing conversation, help clarify misconceptions and engage key concepts from the reading. |
| Minute Paper | Have students write down their thoughts on a prompt for one to two minutes. A minute paper can also serve as the Think portion of a Think-Pair-Share activity. | At the beginning of a lecture on experimental design, students are given two minutes to write down all of their thoughts on the characteristics that make for an effective and conclusive experiment. At the end of the lecture, students are given another two minutes to edit and update their responses from the beginning of class. |
| Small Group Activities & Projects | Assign a problem set, discussion activity, or critical thinking task to small groups. When in doubt, add more structure to clarify roles and desired outcomes. | Prior to coming to lecture, different groups of students read case studies demonstrating different theories of social cohesion in primates, with each set of students becoming the “expert” on their case study. Altogether, the case studies are smaller pieces of a larger puzzle to demonstrate the multiple ways in which primates are theorized to form and maintain social bonds. During class, students form groups of 3-5, with each student representing their unique case study. In segments of 3+ minutes, students teach their group about their case study while prompted by guiding questions. A written record of each group’s work is collected so that the class can also hear from experts in other groups. |
How do I incorporate active learning and still cover all the content that students need?
Content coverage alone does not ensure student learning (Petersen et al., 2020). Streamline content in order to have enough time for in-class activities. Allowing students to engage fully with course material in small group activities can increase student satisfaction with the learning experience and student performance on comprehension measures (Yazedjian & Kolkhorst, 2007). If instructors ensure class activities are complementary to lecture topics and aligned with course learning goals, a similar amount of content can be covered as in a standard lecture-only class (Oliver Hoyo, 2011). Below are some suggestions for streamlining course content. Additionally, see our resource series titled “Content Coverage” for more strategies and suggestions.
| Strategies | Teaching Suggestions |
| Define class learning outcomes and unit objectives around how students should think about your discipline. | Replace the goal of covering as much content as possible with the goal of providing students with the conceptual frameworks and tools to take charge of their own learning in the discipline (Fink, 2013; Wiggins & McTighe, 2005). Identify the core concepts and competencies in your course that you want students to practice, apply, and retain (Petersen et al., 2020). |
| Choose active learning activities that are aligned with your learning outcomes. Create a narrative and rationale for the types of activities you choose based on your content and learning goals. | For example, if you are trying to get students to be able to understand the philosophy of nonviolent resistance of Mahatma Gandhi, you might take the following approach:
In this example, the activities of Minute Papers and Think-Pair-Shares were used because they are great for helping students understand and engage with abstract philosophical concepts. |
| Consider shortening your lecture to make room for Active Learning. | Shortening your lecture while using active learning activities can help to reinforce or further explore the content you cover. For example, you could have students research and present on the content themselves in pairs or groups. While this leaves less room for content ‘coverage’ (that is, sharing as much course material as possible with students), it leads to deeper understanding of the material that you do cover (Petersen et al. 2020). |
| Be transparent with students about your course design and why portions of the course are devoted to active learning. | Students in active learning classrooms learn more but can feel like they learn less (Deslauriers et al., 2019). Because of the increased cognitive load associated with actively engaging with content versus passively listening to lecture, students may believe that active learning approaches are less beneficial (Deslauriers et al., 2019). Provide the rationale for why students should engage actively with course content by sharing the broad and robust research on the effectiveness of active learning classrooms (Freeman et al., 2014; Reimer et al., 2016; Theobald et al., 2020). |
How can I involve my TAs?
One study of six high-enrollment biology lectures found that both students and TAs were more satisfied with coursework when TAs played an active role in learning activities, freeing up time for the instructor to interact directly with students (French & Russell, 2001).
Examples of how to involve TAs in coursework:
- Ask TAs to field questions and circulate amongst groups during active learning activities.
- At the beginning of class, ask TAs to provide a 5-minute review of the previous lecture.
- Ask TAs to assist with logistical concerns like time-management, distributing and collecting materials, managing technology, and listing key terms on the board.
- Divide the lecture hall up into smaller sections and ask TAs to facilitate discussions or activities in each section.
- Hold weekly meetings for instructors and TAs to make sure everyone is prepared, and to allow TAs to take ownership of a specific upcoming activity. This allows for motivation and pride in doing a good job, benefiting both the TA and the students.
- Additional Resources
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- CEE Teaching Support
On integrating effective classroom practices, visit the CEE teaching support website. - Academic Technology Services / EdTech Commons
For academic technology support, visit Academic Technology Services or EdTech Commons, a site designed to support teaching with technology. - CEE TA Orientation
For the TA handbook and instructional materials, visit the CEE TA orientation webpage.
- CEE Teaching Support
- Acknowledgement
- This series was updated with contributions from Bryan Currinder (PhD Candidate, Department of Ecology) and Julian Haddad (PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science).
- Citation
- Center for Educational Effectiveness (CEE). (2024). Activating Your Lecture Series: Just-in-Time Teaching Resources. https://cee.ucdavis.edu/JITT
- References
- Bligh, D. (2000). What’s the use of lectures. Jossey-Bass Publishers.
Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K., & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(39), 19251–19257.
Fink, L. D. (2013). Creating significant learning experiences: An integrated approach to designing college courses (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
Freeman, S., Eddy, S. L., McDonough, M., Smith, M. K., Okoroafor, N., Jordt, H., & Wenderoth, M. P. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(23), 8410–8415.
French, D. P., & Russell, C. P. (2001). The lecture facilitator: Sorcerer's apprentice. Journal of College Science Teaching, 31(2), 116–121.
Gray, K., Steer, D., McConnell, D., & Owens, K. (2010). Using a student-manipulated model to enhance student learning in a large lecture class. Journal of College Science Teaching, 40(1), 86–95.
Oliver Hoyo, M. T. (2010). Lessons learned from the implementation and assessment of student-centered methodologies. Journal of Technology and Science Education, 1(1), 2–11.
Petersen, C. I., et al. (2020). The tyranny of content: “Content coverage” as a barrier to evidence-based teaching approaches and ways to overcome it. CBE Life Sciences Education, 19(2), ar17.
Reimer, L. C., Schenke, K., Nguyen, T., O’Dowd, D. K., Domina, T., & Warschauer, M. (2016). Evaluating promising practices in undergraduate STEM lecture courses. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 2(1), 212–233.
Smith, K. A., Sheppard, S. D., Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2005). Pedagogies of engagement: Classroom-based practices. Journal of Engineering Education, 94(1), 87–101.
Svinicki, M., McKeachie, W., & Nicol, D. (2014). McKeachie's teaching tips: Strategies, research, and theory for college and university teachers (14th ed.). Wadsworth.
Theobald, E. J., et al. (2020). Active learning narrows achievement gaps for underrepresented students in undergraduate STEM. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(12), 6476–6483.
Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd expanded ed.). ASCD.
Yazedjian, A., & Kolkhorst, B. B. (2007). Implementing small-group activities in large lecture classes. College Teaching, 55(4), 164–169.