ABSTRACT
Big lecture halls filled with an audience of willing listeners no longer terrify me, but the large lecture is not the site I would choose for teaching. I am at my best teaching in the smaller workshop setting, where it is possible to get acquainted with the folks I am speaking to and with. I make it through giving a lecture by imagining I am sitting in a living room talking with a small group of people. I think of a lecture as the appetizer before the main meal. The question and answer session is the main moment for me because it is the moment of participatory engagement—the moment when I am no longer speaking alone. Even though it is usually much shorter than the featured lecture presentation, it has a much greater chance of being the moment where we come together as a learning community.
