Structuring the process

1 Briefing

2 Flagging

3 Ground rules

4 Student's questions

5 Orientation

1 Briefing

Lectures are used by teachers for an extraordinary variety of purposes. Their relationship to other course elements such as reading, tutorials, assignments and practicals differs markedly from one course to another. What it is sensible for students to do during such different lectures also varies enormously. However, students may respond as if a lecture is a lecture is a lecture, and behave identically in entirely different situations which demand quite different learning activities. To brief students at the start of a lecture is to tell them what sort of a lecture it is to be, and what sort of learning activity it might be sensible to undertake. Briefing students not only influences their behaviour so that they make more appropriate and effective use of your lecture in their learning, but also has an impact on their perceptiveness and discrimination as learners. They will begin to recognise that different learning tasks make different demands and start extending their repertoire of learning responses accordingly.

We offer a variety of different briefings here to illustrate what we mean:

a 'The reason I am lecturing in the way I am is that I want you to see some live examples of the applications of legal principles to specific cases. I'm expecting you to learn the principles from your text books, and to learn to apply legal principles by tackling the legal problems I've prepared for you which we will discuss in tutorials. In this lecture what I want you to pay attention to is the way I go about tackling such problems. I want you to be able to do it like me. There is only any point in noting down the details of the cases if this helps you to understand and remember the legal arguments involved. OK?'

b 'Your text book deals with these calculations of forces in rigid structures perfectly adequately, but you may find it difficult to follow on your own. I'm going to use each of these lectures to go over one chapter: to explain the methods and notations the text book uses, and to highlight particular problems or interesting bits. You could probably manage without these lectures. You certainly can't manage without going through your text book very thoroughly. I'm lecturing to make your work through your text book that much quicker and easier. You should make notes in your textbook as I go along, rather than take full notes.'

c 'You are only going to get a grip on the social psychology of groups by reading, and reading quite widely. I've given you a substantial reading list; read as much as you can but you will find the reading hard going. The authors I've chosen all use different language and make different assumptions even when considering the same phenomenon. The theoretical perspectives from which writers approach topics are very varied and greatly colour the way they write. So the purpose of my lectures is to try to stop you from getting lost when you start reading. I'll familiarise you with the terminology and highlight some landmarks along the way. I want you to consider my lectures as maps to a strange land. Take the sort of notes you'll find helpful to have next to you when you're reading.'

d 'This lecture introduces you to dialectical materialism. It's a difficult concept and one that underpins much of what the remainder of the course is concerned with. Now I could just give you a neat definition to write down or some quotes from Engels for you to copy. But that wouldn't help you much. Instead I'd like to talk around this concept and just try to explain it as best I can; I want you just to try and understand it. Don't bother taking any notes; just listen and think. I'll be asking you to discuss some aspects of dialectical materialism later in the lecture.'

Briefing is concerned with the overall function of the lecture and is therefore distinct from Flagging(see 2) which is used to draw attention to the nature of specific actions you might take within a lecture.

2 Flagging

Flagging is explaining what you are doing, and why. Teachers often introduce an activity or the next stage of a session without flagging it, assuming either that students already know what it is they are supposed to do and what they are supposed to get out of it, or that students don't need to know: all they have to do is follow instructions. But people's ability to undertake tasks depends crucially on their understanding of the task – and not just their understanding of what the task is, but of why it is a sensible or useful thing to do. Many of the suggestions in this book may need thorough flagging the first few times they are used or students may feel hesitant and reluctant to engage in the suggested activity.

For example, you might want to introduce a break into your lecture – something you haven't tried before – and say, 'OK, stand up, stretch your arms and give a big yawn'. This is likely to be met with embarrassed giggles and not much movement. To flag this would be to explain, 'You've been sitting still in this gloomy, stuffy room for 40 minutes now. It may help you to be comfortable and to stay alert for the next 20 minutes if you use the next minute to move around a bit. Stand up, stretch your arms, have a good yawn, try anything you like to release the physical tension and relax your muscles. I'm going to do the same'.

If you wanted to introduce a buzz group exercise (see 38 Buzz groups) you might say, 'Now, in pairs, I want you to look at the map on the next slide and decide what Christaller's theory would have to say about the location of the towns'. For students unused to such activity during a lecture, and unused to working with one other student, and certainly unsure whether this was some sort of trick test, this might be a difficult task to get going on. To flag it might involve explaining, 'It's important that you are able to apply Christaller's theory to specific places and I need to know whether you are able to do this before I continue. So I'm going to set you a very brief task to do. It might be difficult to get going on your own so work together with your neighbour'.

It is probably better to be over-explicit in your flagging than to assume your audience already knows why you are doing what you are doing.

3 Ground rules

All lectures have ground rules though these are not normally explicit. Unless you have informed your students of the specific ground rules you want to operate they will probably assume that conventional ground rules are operating. These conventional ground rules may include:

a The responsibility for the success of the lecture is entirely the teacher's, who will do all the preparation, all the real work...