Episode 55: Let's Talk About Teaching Long Classes with Dr. Sheila B. Robinson

by Barbi Honeycutt, Ph.D.

lecture breakers podcast teaching long classes 


Description:

Our guest in episode 55 of the Lecture Breakers podcast is Dr. Sheila B. Robinson. She’s here to talk with us about teaching long classes.

Classes that are 3, 4, 5, or more hours long present new challenges (and opportunities!) when it comes to student engagement and learning.

In this episode, we talk about how to keep students engaged and focused in long classes without overwhelming them with too many activities and distractions.

(And, for my faculty development colleagues listening to this episode, these same strategies can be applied to long, half-day, full-day, or multi-day workshops or professional development sessions as well.)

We start our conversation discussing the benefits of teaching long classes and how you can use that to your advantage when designing active learning experiences, especially when it comes to debriefing and reflection activities which we may not always have time to do in shorter classes.

Sheila also discusses the importance of what she calls “purpose and framing” when planning active learning experiences and how those concepts are more important than the actual active learning strategies you choose.

And finally, Sheila shares some creative ways to structure your breaks and what to add to your breaks to make them more and meaningful, effective, and fun.

What You'll Learn:

  • How long classes offer more opportunities for engagement, application, debriefing, and reflection.

  • The importance of purpose and framing when planning active learning experiences.

  • How to structure your breaks and what to add to your breaks to make them more effective and valuable to your students.

  • The importance of pacing and how it can help you avoid overwhelming your students and adding too much to your lesson.

  • How to debrief both the content and the process with your students to create more successful learning experiences in long classes.

Show Notes:

 

Transcript:

 

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