Nuts and bolts: Some practical strategies to support effective teaching

The following material was taken from M4 - Conducting mathematics lessons Links to an external site. within the AustMS unit.

This next section has been chosen from the unit to start you thinking and reflecting about being intentional in your practice, taking the particular example of when you run out of time in your class. Some of the strategies suggested below may also be useful in blended learning when you need to free time in your class to incorporate more active learning approaches, for example, when you ask students to solve problems in class that you then discuss with them right after.   

Timing

Simply getting through a set amount of material should not be the major aim of your class – the aim should be that your students understand the material and learn to solve mathematical problems on their own. Covering all the material might make you feel good as a lecturer, but your students may not take it all in.

The timing of your class presentation is very important as it can have a deep impact on your students' learning and your own stress levels. While you may perform well under stress, your students may feel rushed and won't appreciate it if you explain material faster than they can write it. You can gauge your students' response to your delivery by watching them and asking questions as you go along. An increase in noise level may indicate that you are losing their attention. If you try to cover too much content, you will inevitably run out of time and start to rush through the material in the final minutes of your lecture, which would be a waste of effort for both you and the students.

For example, you might be taking an introductory calculus lecture where you have been explaining that every differentiable function is continuous. You've given the first of two very good examples you have prepared, and you find yourself at the end of the lecture time. While you had planned to give the second example, even if you think it to be extremely important, the reality is that the students will be thinking of the next class and simply not be absorbing what you are saying. If the example is really that important, it can always be posted on the Learning Management System.

Disruptions can occur, such as fire alarms, technical equipment failure or power loss. You should be aware of the time constraints and be prepared to make a clear decision about material that you don't have time to cover properly. This is true even if you were at fault through poor planning, or if it simply took longer than expected to properly explain something, or if you had lots of questions during the class. It is also courteous towards the lecturers and students who follow you in the same room to finish your class on schedule and give them sufficient time to set up for their class.

When you reflect on a class in which you had timing problems, you should consider the reason/s it happened. Even a bad day can eventually have a positive outcome if you learn from it. One strategy is to annotate your notes immediately for the next time you present the class, suggesting where you think you could shorten the presentation. If your second example really is important, should you plan to keep a better eye on the time and abbreviate the first example, or some other part of the lecture, if necessary? If you are regularly running short of time, then you should reconsider the amount of material or number of examples you prepare for your future classes in the current semester.