Excellence in teaching

Philip Vercoe is a Lecturer in the Animal Science Department. He received the Excellence in Teaching Award for the Faculty of Agriculture in 1999. This award represents a joint effort by the Guild and the University to recognise and reward exemplary teaching.

There is so much information around now that it is impossible to cover everything in the contact hours we have available. We need to be clever about the choice of information to present in our courses and how we present it. The focus of this article is my philosophy in terms of the presentation of information in lectures after I have selected the material to present to satisfy the following goals:

• Give the students a solid foundation in the topic
• Allow them to appreciate the scope and relevance of the topic
• Spark an interest for the topic in the students
• Inspire some of them to study the topic further

No matter how good the material selected is, I do not think students learn effectively unless that information is presented well. There are many things that contribute to presenting material well and virtually all of them relate to making students feel relaxed about learning. I consider the following points when presenting the material I have selected.

• A good introduction. Students must be aware of what you are trying to achieve and how you are going to achieve it. I think this prevents any guessing about what is to come and the students can, instead, concentrate on putting the information provided into some framework.
• The presentation medium. Presenting something well does not necessarily mean using the latest technology (eg. computer presentations). As with any type of presentation medium, it becomes distracting rather than effective if not used properly and in the background. New technologies can often amplify this problem. For example, there are more options for moving parts, colours and noises available on some of the latest computer presentation packages. If these options are not used wisely, the information presented plays second fiddle to the presentation format. I like my lectures to be interactive and many of the students seem more comfortable to interact if they sense that the atmosphere is less formal. Often slide and computer presentations are presented in partial, or complete, darkness, which seems to create a formal atmosphere. I think overheads or the use of the whiteboard can make the atmosphere less formal and the students more relaxed about contributing and interacting. I tend to use slides and computer presentations when I think I need to provide a significant visual impact. For example, colourful fluorescent images of microbial species within a microbial community or an electronmicrograph of ruminal fungi attached to cellulose. Using the web to post lectures is fine but I don’t think it is a substitute for face to face contact. Where it can be useful is in providing additional tutorials or revision questions that are interesting and interactive for the students to do in their own time for their own interest.
• Analogies. I use as many analogies as I can to help the students grasp difficult concepts. I think that once the students understand the basic concepts they are in a position to question the material I present. If the students start to ask questions for themselves you have sparked an interest in the subject.
• Humour. I try to use a little humour mainly to keep the atmosphere informal but also to break the monotony of the lecture.
• Flexibility. I try to be as flexible as possible with what I attempt to cover in one lecture. If the students seem interested in certain aspects of the lecture, or particularly confused with a concept, I spend more time on it than I planned. If I feel there is no flexibility it usually means I am trying to get through too much information. Obviously there are some limits to the flexibility. For example, often there is information that the students need to be given in lectures for a corresponding practical to make sense.
• Enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the key to a good presentation. It’s hard not to get excited about something when the person giving the presentation is passionate about what they are saying.

This is just my approach to selecting and presenting information and I am sure there are many others. However, if I were a betting man and was asked to bet on the one thing common to all the different approaches that helped students to learn, my money would be on enthusiasm.