Building a Better Lecture

Lectures are a crucial component of education, but they can often be tedious and, let's face it, a little boring. And while we all know to avoid the dreaded "Death by PowerPoint," simply knowing what not to do isn't enough to tell us what we should be doing. We've collected a few tried-and-true methods for livening up the traditional lecture, which we hope will help create a more engaging experience for your students.

Keep it Short and Sweet

Micro-learning is all the rage these days and for good reason. Long lectures can be overwhelming, leading to cognitive overload and possibly reducing your students’ knowledge retention. Keep your lectures short (10-20 minutes), focused, and break them up with interactive activities or multimedia.

Speaking of Multimedia…

Multimedia is just a fancy word for using images, videos, and/or audio to present information. With multimedia elements, you can make your lectures easier to understand while also stimulating more of your students’ senses. For example, instead of just reading a PowerPoint slide, you can add images and videos (even ReelDx video cases) to make the information more engaging.

Tell Stories

If you’ve ever listened to a TedTalk, you already know just how impactful storytelling can be in learning. Incorporating stories into your lectures can help students connect with the material on a deeper level and make the information more memorable by putting it into a real-life context. Think back to all of those compelling antidotes that you’ve experienced in the clinic that helped make you a better healthcare provider and consider sharing them in your next lecture.

Use Real-Life Examples

Including real patient cases in your lectures can help your students see how the information they are learning can be applied in real-life situations. This approach can also help students develop problem-solving and critical-thinking skills, not to mention developing deeper empathy for the patients they interact with down the line. These are some of the many reasons that inspired the creation of ReelDx to begin with!

Make it Interactive

Another way to make lectures more fun is to encourage interaction. Instead of just talking at your students, try to create a conversation with them. You can do this by asking questions, encouraging discussions, and using group activities. When students are actively involved in the lecture, they are more likely to stay engaged and retain the information.

Incorporate Games and Quizzes

Gamification is another way to make your lectures more exciting and interactive. Games and quizzes can be used to review information, test understanding, and keep students engaged. For example, you can use an online quiz platform such as Kahoot to create a game that students can play on their phones during the lecture.

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