What makes a good lecture(r)?

Posted on | August 21, 2005 | 5 Comments

This week I gave my first ever lecture on blogging. I’m not sure how it came about, really, aside from the equation: can lecture + has blog = the blogging lecturer. To me there’s something a bit wrong with this formulation. Then again, for time reasons I actually asked to give my lecture on blogging given that I’d just written a chapter on it, so I guess the really curious equation to ponder is the initial one: can write a chapter + has blog + is a feminist/gender studies PhD = author of the blogging and gender chapter. I have much more to say about this, but not at the moment.

I’m a bit unsure how the lecture went. I wasn’t given much idea what to talk about, so I persisted with my ‘try to cater for everyone, make a few jokes and smile a lot’ approach to lecturing. I think it helps to be The Young Person when doing guest lectures like these. I pray that it means the students forgive a lot of my crapness, fear and general bewilderment at course objectives. At least the number of excellent questions afterwards certified that some people were listening, and indeed a number of them could have done a much better job than me. If only I had this to show! I would have had another killer teaching prop. Thanks Danny for the link.

Category: Teaching, Web studies

Comments

5 Responses to “What makes a good lecture(r)?”

  1. Glen
    August 21st, 2005 @ 2:50 pm

    haha… death to the meta-bloggers!

  2. danny
    August 21st, 2005 @ 3:31 pm

    Well done! I’m sure you were great. I think a big part of what makes a good tertiary educator (or teaching dept), over the long term, is their recognition of teaching as a methodology fostered in communities of practice that some people have expertise in. i.e. good teachers I’ve had have often (not always) been those who experimented with teaching methods, and learnt from / shared with others. Unfortunately my experience in a few institutions was that this rarely occurred, and it was not until three years into my teaching career that I actually did a course on teaching, which opened my eyes to a lot of my own limitations and provided an overview of educational research / theory that I wish I had at the start. (Even though the course was lame and instrumentalist in some ways).

    Also, I’ve had great lecturers who were worse classroom teachers and vice-versa. I’m probably better at lecturing than in the classroom, or that could just be that one’s failings in the classroom are very apparent :7.

  3. Nick
    August 21st, 2005 @ 6:09 pm

    I was at this lecture, and I thought it was really good. I don’t really know what other people thought, but I think they liked it.
    Afterwards in tutorials we had to debate “whether the internet is more similar to telophones, or television”, and I’m sure everyone enjoyed your lecture more than THAT.

  4. melgregg
    August 22nd, 2005 @ 7:27 am

    Hey Nick, thanks a lot for the feedback. Really glad to hear you got something out of it. So who won the debate? Tough topic!

  5. Rowan
    August 24th, 2005 @ 3:00 pm

    Mel, I’m curious about your statement (both in earlier posts and in the above post) that ‘…it helps to be The Young Person when giving guest lectures like these…’ I am assuming from the capitalisation that you see this is as a stereotype of some sort or a construction, and one you obviously feel keenly when you give a guest lecture. When you have the time, I would be interested to hear more about your views on age and (guest) lecturing in particular, as well as in relation to the broader dissemination of knowledge within academia. For instance, how do you define The Young Person? What are the parameters and contexts? When do you stop being The Young Person? Who circulates this stereotype: tenured staff, guest lecturers like yourself, students? You clearly acknowledge it is useful at times. Why? Is this currency restricted to certain subjects or fields (such as blogging), or do you think it is universally useful regardless of subject? As I say, am curious…

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