Lecture Walkthrough

I am doing all/most of the talking. It can occasionally be difficult to keep the Lecture Walkthrough format from feeling like a second lecture commenting on the first. This can prevent students from being actively and directly involved in the learning process, nullifying one of the key virtues of discussion sections.

• Be a guide, not a translator. Rather than directly explaining what is being said in a highlighted lecture moment, ask students to explain what is being said (to you and other students). This will not only help the Lecture Walkthrough format be more of a discussion as opposed to a second lecture, but it will also encourage students to rely on each other (rather than only you) as sources of learning.

• Invite students to select their own moments to focus on. Encourage (or even require) students to identify moments in lecture that they had questions about or felt were important. This can be done ahead of section or during the walkthrough itself. Let students jump in when their selected moment comes up, and ask them to explain why they’ve selected that moment of the lecture: what question do they have about it or why do they think it’s important? Use this as the grounds for further discussion.

Students are responding only/mostly to me, and not to one another. As you are guiding students through the lecture,this format can naturally put you at the center of any discussions that emerge from consideration of the lecture. This strategy can lead to many student-teacher-student or teacher-student-teacher interactions while constraining the number of student-student interactions.

• Combine Lecture Walkthrough with other strategies. Make the Lecture Walkthrough only part of the agenda in a given section. For example, you might dedicate only the first part of section to the walkthrough and then follow up by breaking into small group discussions. Different activities can shake up classroom social structure, functionally removing you from the immediate section interaction, and thus force students to rely on their peers more.

• Explicitly incorporate students’ responses into your own responses. When students turn to you for information and feedback, explicitly rely on questions and answers put forth by other students: collect questions/answers on the board or in an online document, use students’ questions, answers, and particular phrasing to frame discussion topics, call out and connect related points made by distinct students, and so on. Even if you are, functionally speaking, at the center of the discussion, you can still make the discussion clearly student-driven. Also, whenever possible, try to give students explicit credit for their contributions.