A switch flipped in my head at the beginning of my lectures last spring. At that point I had lectured something like 5 full university courses and maybe something like 50 research seminars. I was an experienced speaker.
I enjoy using humour when I lecture. Lectures aren’t built for people’s natural attention spans, and even after long experience, it is almost impossible for a person to focus on a lecture for 50 minutes straight. Humour provides a break ...
It’s the time of year when teaching is very much on my mind. In an essay about his teaching style, Michael Scott says something about encouraging student participation that stuck with me:
