This book presents up-to-date research on the different types of lecture, on what constitutes effective lecturing, and on the impact of lecturing when done appropriately and well. It fills the void in professional development resources on how to lecture, validating the practice when it’s aligned with the educational mission of creating engaged learning environments. Christine Harrington and Todd Zakrajsek demonstrate that, rather than lecture and active learning being mutually exclusive or either-or propositions, the effectiveness of the former can be greatly enhanced when combined with active learning techniques through what they define as dynamic lecturing; and provide context about the need to balance these approaches to meet the needs of students as they progress from novice to advanced learners.

An extraordinary amount of research shows clearly that augmenting lectures with some form of active learning enhances student learning. In a meta-analysis of 225 studies, Freeman and his colleagues (2014) at the University of Washington found the average score on exams to be 6% higher when active learning was included in the course. The researchers also found that students were 1.5 times more likely to fail when faculty members lectured nearly all the time. More recently, Theobald and colleagues (2020), also at the University of Washington, noted that adding active learning exercises into a STEM course narrowed gaps in passing rates between majority and underrepresented minority students by 45%.