Welcome to BAAS’s Mini-Lecture series! In this series, we’ve got academics from universities around the UK to present on topics that should help you further explore aspects of your A Level syllabus. These focus on bringing an American Studies approach to History, Politics, English, Media, and Drama. Some of these lectures might be more detailed case studies, and some might offer alternative views on the subject.
These mini-lectures are designed to mimic the kind of talk you might hear at a university. Whilst a normal lecture could be from 50 minutes to 2 hours, these are all approximately 10 minutes. They will follow the following structure:
- Introduction
- Main body of lecture
- Conclusion
If you watch more than one video, you will see that all the speakers have different presenting styles – there is no uniform way to deliver a lecture, and at university you would encounter many different presenting styles. At the end of each lecture, there will be an assignment that will help you develop your understanding of the material.
There is no right or wrong way to absorb the information that the lecturers are giving you. It will vary depending on your own learning style! At university, most students absorb the content of their lectures through notetaking.
Here are some tips on how to take good notes during a mini-lecture:
- You can use a pen and paper or a laptop – whichever is more useful to you!
- Do not try and copy down everything that the lecturer is saying. Instead, think about what are the most important points that are being conveyed.
- It is good practice to note down key words. If the lecturer has visual aids, normally key words and ideas will be conveyed there!
- Adopt whatever approach works for you. It doesn’t have to be neat or perfect – at university, no-one will see your notes but you!
- Finally, all of the mini-lectures are available online! In this case, if you’ve missed something then you can rewind the video back.
At the end of each mini-lecture, ask yourself what you think the speaker wanted the main takeaway of the lecture to be. What was important? What examples did they use? What conclusions did they reach?
You can download this guide as a PDF here:
This resources presented as part of the Bridging the Resource Gap project, funded by the British Association of American Studies and the US Embassy.