Suggestion 44. Organize your lectures into 10-minute segments

IF YOU WANT TO:

• Give lectures that are easy to outline

• Organize your lectures to leave time for a summary

• Improve the pace and timing of your lectures

Organizing your lectures into ten-minute segments.

A faculty member who reports doing this says that he learned the trick from an article in Science written by Nobel Laureate, Sir Lawrence Bragg.

In the original article, Bragg says, "Some try to get the timing of a lecture right by, as they say, `running over it beforehand' and seeing how long it takes...I prefer to divide it into some half dozen portions, and allocate about ten minutes to each, marking this timing in the margin of my rough notes..."

"The advantage of dividing the time up in this way is that the pace can be adjusted during the lecture when it is clear that it is going to be too long or (rarely) too short. If time is running long, the part to shorten is the middle where it will be little noticed. The beginning or the end must not be hurried..." ("The Art of Talking about Science," Science, Vol. 154, December 1966.)

Limitations on Use of Suggestion

  Discipline:  None
Course Level:  None
 Course Size:  None
        Mode:  Lecture

Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California

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