Text Size: Default Text Size Text Size Medium Text Size Large
Block M. Skip to Main Content
University of Minnesota

What's Inside

Some Ideas for Lecturing

  • Prepare yourself emotionally for class.
  • Grab students' attention with your opening.
  • Announce the objectives for each class period.
  • Think about and watch your audience during the lecture.
  • Vary your delivery to keep students' attention.
  • Convey your own enthusiasm for the material.
  • Make your organization explicit.
  • Be conversational.
  • Maintain eye contact with the audience.
  • Use movement and facial expressions to help emphasize main points.
  • Keep track of time.
  • Pause frequently to give students time to take notes.
  • Breathe normally.
  • Give students a road map to follow (use transitions, previews and reviews).
  • Avoid telling students everything you know.
  • Repeat key ideas frequently.
  • Use different words to make the same point.
  • Move from the simple to the complex.
  • Limit the number of main points to three or four.
  • Demonstrate a complex concept-don't just describe it.
  • Conclude forcefully.
  • Make notes to yourself after the lecture on what went well and what did not.
  • Record and/or videotape yourself lecturing.

Center for Teaching and Learning