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Introduction: Define the subject matter. State what the audience will learn in this session.

That's how Powerpoint's AutoContent Wizard (*shiver*) suggests that one might begin a presentation. However, I believe that the author of Lecturing For Dummies (a volume that, if it doesn't already exist, should) may have inadvertently confused "session" with "entire bloody term".

Yes. I suggest this because I am compelled to rant (briefly) about so-called "introductory" lectures. I hate them. I shall be fair on Jane Sinclair, though, by conceding that today's Systematic Software Development lecture was only a partial example.

But anyway. A module introduction should last five minutes, not fifty. Fifty minutes of being told what you are going to study over the next ten weeks is not a productive use of valuable potential learning time. Especially when all the information given is already on the handouts and the module web pages, trivially accessible to anyone with functioning eyes (or a screen reader, damn it). There really are few activities as pointless as listening to someone reading you the contents of a sheet you're holding in your hand. Uhm, unless the content is in a foreign language, and you're trying to learn it.

I find myself wondering if there's a rule among academics for this sort of thing. Did some 1990s politikalkorrektchik publish some woolly set of lecturing guidelines that everyone is still following?

At the dark, sub-zero start of a second term that promises new extremes of theoretical drudgery, I'm doing my very best to garner motivation for lecture attendance. This process is not aided by initial lectures that leave one with the frank conclusion that nothing useful was learnt, as one tends to project this result subconsciously across the entire module. First impressions, and all that.

Lecturers, please, if the handout for lecture 1 has a week by week outline of all the topics covered in the module, then *don't* stand there reading it out and offering no extra information. If there will be a programming assignment worth 20% set in Week 8 and it says so on the handout, then don't spend five minutes explaining this.

If I want a loose outline of the lecture plans, then I'll read the module web page for myself, in my own time. Your job is to use the available lecture time to *teach*.

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