Lectures
The main strategies you can consider either on their own or in combination are:
Ensure key lecture content is available online before the lecture.
- Ensure lecture/seminar slides/outlines are made available in electronic format in advance (e.g. at least 24 hours) to allow all students to prepare (particularly students with notetaking difficulties).
- This enables learners to focus on understanding the concepts rather than writing notes and allows them to come prepared. For presentations, add notes to the notes field in PowerPoint to help clarify explanations and use animations to explain difficult concepts. Adding notes to PowerPoint slides adds much value to the presentation for everyone in the long run and also helps to meet the needs of visually impaired students who may not be able to see the visuals.
Use Panopto to record lectures
- Use lecture capture to assist notetaking
- Support students who need to record using their own devices
Use a microphone
Where available, microphones help:
- Reduce the amount of effort that students have to spend concentrating to hear (very important for students with hearing impairments and for those whose first language is not English)
- Reduce the risk of loss of information or mishearing information.
- Remove the need for students to ask teaching staff to wear a microphone.
Repeat any questions
During group discussions, or when responding to audience questions or remarks, repeat what the speaker has said clearly for all to hear. Acoustics in lecture rooms are often poor, and when a forward-facing audience member speaks, few behind them can hear anything. Even in a smaller space, if you are hard of hearing it can be difficult to ascertain exactly who is speaking at any given time, and therefore who to focus on. If the teacher becomes a central conduit for all comments, the student can retain focus.
