Learning to Listen to What Your Students Say

Have you worked for hours on your lectures yet feel you were the only one listening when you delivered them? (The snoring from the back of the room was your first clue.) Have you lamented your frustration when your assessments show the students did not develop a good understanding of the concept about which you delivered that brilliant lecture? (Students cry, “You never gave us a problem like that!”) Have you spent hours developing demonstrations only to find that students remember the demo but not the concept you were trying to illustrate? (“I remember that you didn't get hurt on that bed of nails but I don't remember why.”) The lecture format that you experienced throughout most of your education just is not working for most of the learners in your classroom. It's your turn to be the one helping others to understand, and you are struggling with identifying techniques that work.