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TEACH Program

Is giving students a complete set of notes a good idea?

A popular topic for debate is whether or not instructors should provide their students with notes from their lecture or PowerPoint presentation.  Take a look at these results from a Faculty Focus poll.  What do you think?  Is giving students a complete set of notes a good idea?  Why or why not?  If you don’t provide them with a complete set of notes, what do you provide?  I’d love to hear what you think!

Published Sep 08 2008, 03:13 PM by mmeixner
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Comments

 

dlow said:

I had someone ask me that exact question in class today.  It was late in the class and I think he was getting tired of taking notes.  :)

When I was in school and I had the notes ahead of time, I couldn't help but get distracted and turn off my brain whenever the professor began reading off of their notes.  Bare minimal of involvement means the student should be copying notes off the board, anything else and they're just zombies, little chance for retention in class.    

September 8, 2008 5:21 PM
 

sjackman said:

I can easily see students becoming passive and bored with a class when they are given *complete* notes.  In fact, there is research to support this.  On the other hand, students who receive no notes may also become lost during the class as the concepts pass by quickly and they become confused.  (There's research to support this as well.)

Several studies support the idea of providing students with a skeletal outline for each class.  There is enough information to guide them through the class, but they will certainly need to fill in details on their own.  How you design this outline is up to you, of course, but it's probably something worth thinking about for future classes.

September 10, 2008 1:35 PM
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