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An English literature scholar is making it her mission to remind the sector about the importance of recapturing the ¡°live¡± qualities of the lecture to keep students engaged.

Eileen Pollard, an associate lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, told Times Higher Education that doing a postgraduate certificate in higher education ¨C which she is still in the process of completing ¨C allowed her to reflect on her own teaching and to ¡°question my own inhibitions¡± in conducting lectures, which she believes are still ¡°utterly relied upon¡± in universities.

¡°There is a tension between teachers [thinking] the lecture is outmoded and that often students are bored, and [the fact] that the students can be extremely rigid about what they feel constitutes a lecture,¡± she said. ¡°You¡¯re thinking all the time, ¡®I need to make this interesting for this diverse student body¡¯ [which] at the same time is quite fixed in its idea about lecturing and doesn¡¯t want it to [change] too much.¡±

Dr Pollard has discovered that while teachers saw the lecture as a starting place for the process of thinking about a topic, students felt that it was a point of ¡°crystallising knowledge¡± ¨C something you could ¡°package up and take away¡±.

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However, she believes learning is ¡°more messy, experiential and uncertain¡± and not something you can ¡°carry out of the room¡±.

Therefore, she is sceptical about the scope for making lectures more like TED talks that are later viewed online. ¡°The problem with putting material online is that just because you get a certain number of hits for a video, it doesn¡¯t mean that it equates to engagement,¡± she said.

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¡°In a lecture you have people in real time, real space and you can gauge the level of their engagement. Even though people love to do things online, and social media [are] a big part of their existence, we still like to go to things, sit next to others and experience a one-off event.¡±

Her interaction with people from different disciplines on her postgraduate teaching course has brought new ideas for enhancing engagement in lectures. ¡°One of my friends took in some air horns just to change the environment in the room,¡± she said.

¡°Engagement is something everyone has to deal with, no matter what you¡¯re teaching. You¡¯re basically trying to convey information and you have a certain number of tools available. Meeting other people makes you aware of more tools.¡±

Dr Pollard also realised that the arrangement of students in the room was vitally important to engagement. ¡°One of my own inhibitions was that I didn¡¯t want to move anyone about in a lecture; I felt they had a right to sit wherever they wanted. The minute I started moving them forward, it changed the dynamic in a very positive way,¡± she said.

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Her best advice to ensure good teaching throughout a career is: never lose ¡°the fear¡± of giving a live lecture. ¡°You must be alive to the fact that you have no idea who is in the room and how they might react. And the way to keep alive as a lecturer is to never lose that fear.¡±

john.elmes@tesglobal.com