Distance education in front of an audience

During the Covid years of 2020 and 2021 I went all in on distance education and experimented wildly with live-streaming and recording of lectures. But this spring I am back in the classroom again, and it has been very interesting to apply the lessons learned and the content created. In 2021 I held a few lectures in Building Physics on the topic of moisture, which I also recorded. It was the first time I lectured on the topic and my full focus was simply to keep my nose above the water line and get through the lectures without making to big a fool of myself. The students were very clear in their feedback and most wished for more calculation examples and less lectures. Consequently, this year, I thought about how to approach this and decided to replace all the scheduled lectures with calculation sessions instead. I am now extremely curious to see what the students´ judgment will be.

Education, ComputerRikard ÖqvistMay 23, 2022education, online education, distance learning, technology, school, lecturingComment

Questions are a sign of quality

When I give a lecture or do a presentation, a bullet-proof way to know whether I did a good job or not, is if I get questions afterwards. Take note of this the next time you listen to an awesome presentation. When the lecture ends, that is where the real conversation starts. The best lectures get the most questions, and the inferior presentations get few or no questions at all. If the audience could not understand a single word of what you were talking about, how are they supposed to ask a question then? And on the contrary, if they clearly understood your message, asking questions will be simple.

EducationRikard ÖqvistJanuary 16, 2021lecturing, presentation, powerpoint, communication, experience, diversity, educationComment