Lee’s Daily Blog

A few of us were discussing over lunch today what makes a great lecturer.

Is it someone highly knowledgeable about a subject?
Yes they know a lot and if you have questions about a subject, they can probably answer them in a confident manner. However, these academics haven’t always got the best teaching skills, often making it difficult to learn what they’re trying to get across

Is it someone who gives you plenty of hints for the exam?
Although you may appreciate it for passing the module, how much is this setting you up for when you may need the content of the module elsewhere. In cases where you’re being forced to do a module, but you feel it is really of no use to you, is this the best type of lecturer to have?

Is it someone who has been lecturing the same module for a number of years?
At this stage, they normally have reasonable lecturing skills. They should also know the subject material pretty well. However, we felt they were normally bored of it if they were onto their 5th/6th time of teaching the same thing.

What are your thoughts on what makes the best type of lecturer?

This post is for Thursday, 29th January, 2009

Notes - by Mark Brady

It’s the first week of the new semester at university. It means it’s time for new modules, new lecturers and new methods of receiving notes. I think between all my modules this semester, I cover all possible methods of receiving / taking notes.

• There is the traditional lecturer who speaks and puts notes up on the board, but it’s up to us to take notes as nothing is published after the lecture.
• I also have the lecturer who has given us everything in advance, essentially minimizing the need to go to lectures if we didn’t want to.
• The other method is to give us all of the basic notes in advance, but miss out proofs and examples, requiring us to go the lectures to get these.
• Finally there are the lectures where you take notes during them, however, at the end of the week the majority of the notes are published online.

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