A Blog Around The Clock

1. Practice before the talk? Recognize that the audience will follow the speaker's eyes. If you're staring at your computer screen, that where the audience's eyes will be too. Agreed that "not making eye contact" is the first slide, but it's too nebulous - you must make constant eye contact and you must use your eyes to direct the audience's attention.

2. Know your audience and prepare accordingly. Too many times I've had guest lecturers come in and talk way over the head of the students. You must use a vocabulary they understand and deliver it in an appropriate manner.

3. Prepare the audience. Tell them when questions should be proffered. Can they just "popcorn" them, should they raise their hand, should they write them down and ask at the end.

4. As an occasional Art History lecturer, our department's mantra is that slides used in the lectures should be the visual argument, and your voice is the textual one.

5. Don't surprise the audience and stay on topic. Surprises tend to overshadow all other content, rambling confuses them. My first slide after the title one is "4 things you will know after this lecture." At the end of the lecture, I bring up each of the things on separate slides to drive home the point(s) of the lecture. I always draw test and essay questions from that pool of those things. I try to keep it down to 4 things because I work with lower division undergraduates (freshman and sophomores). See point #2.

Gratuitous use of annoying soundtracks should also be avoided. The audience may be struggling to hear the sound and miss the visual.

Oh and where's my comment to the Art History entry?! Gee I give you two innocuous links and it's held in moderation hell.

Posted by: Onkel Bob | September 2, 2008 2:33 PM

Awww! Whaddayamean no surgery pics?

Posted by: NM | September 3, 2008 6:39 PM