Preparing & Delivering Seminars (Module 4)

Session Summary

Seminars are often the first thing a PGR student is asked to teach, yet they are not the ‘easy teaching’ that many in higher education seem to want them to be. This session will respond by providing coverage relative to both the preparation and delivery of excellent seminars. This will include the importance of being better prepared and more knowledgeable than the students (whatever the topic), laying out the ground rules for interaction, stressing the importance of engagement and discussion, appreciating the intellectual, social, and affective needs of the students, rendering the discussion concrete, and strategies for integrating student responses. Some generic example exercises/activities for use in seminars will also be provided and discussed. Teaching seminars is difficult and this session is designed to help!

Indicative Feedback for this Session

Thank you very much, the session was great and very interesting. I am now more motivated to teach than ever before (West of Scotland).

This was excellent. Thanks Simon. I am quite new to teaching, so to have the benefit of your experience, with practical examples, is invaluable. It’s also great to hear that there is a commitment to helping students to think freely (Canterbury Christchurch).

[This was a] very useful seminar with a wide variety of topics discussed - really helpful and interesting. I will be thinking about this seminar for a long time, to find my own feet [and] will take on board all [the] tips for encouraging engagement of students…Excellent class (Ulster).

The session was useful in a very practical way, giving specific ideas on how to prepare, deliver and facilitate seminar sessions. Simon also gave very good advice on how to manage student expectations, and what these expectations are likely to be. This was really informative and will make a big difference to when I start teaching in a university (East Anglia).

This has been a revelatory session…Now I feel that I could run any seminar with the required confidence. I know what the purpose of the seminar is, how to structure one, and how to deal with possible behaviours. You really saved me a lot of very embarrassing moments…trying to figure all this out by myself (City).