Towards a pattern language for lecture design: An inventory and categorization of existing lecture-relevant patterns

Lectures are a common way of teaching in many universities, independent of the general effectiveness of this instructional method. Designing good lectures is a challenging task, and many lecturers struggle with the question how to improve the design of lectures and how to minimize the disadvantages of this instruction method. Educational patterns, as applied by successful lecturers, offer answers to these questions. But these patterns are described in multiple and unrelated publications, which makes finding and using them difficult. In this paper we make an inventory of lecture-relevant patterns from the existing literature on pedagogical patterns and begin with their categorization. The goal of this work is to help lecturers finding relevant patterns that help them designing their lectures and to provide first steps towards a pattern language for lecture design.