HANDOUTS

While the nature. purpose and content of handouts are all important
learning issues, might I also suggest that the process of giving or distributing
them can be worthy of attention too? We often talk about the need for breaks,
and even some physical activity, in lectures to re-establish levels of attention;
well, handouts can contribute to that as well as to a sense of ownership. It's also
important not pointlessly to slow everything down while handouts move
progressively from front to back with the back row (never the keenest of students)
having to wait longest.

All the following methods are designed to quicken the distribution process
and to engage the students more in it.

Here are a few of the methods I have used, often unpremeditated and from
a sense of what was appropriate in the situation:

€ hand sheafs of them to individual students in different parts of the room
with the instruction "hand these around this area in whatever way you think
suitable";

€ give them to one student (preferably in the back row) and ask them to find an
efficient way of distributing them "which will almost certainly include delegating";

€ hand them to alternate rows with the instruction that each person takes one for
themselves and one for anyone sitting in front of them and introduces themselves
in the process

€ have one student seated near the door whose job it is to give handouts to any
late arrivals and maybe with the instruction that the latter must take her/his place
(though I've never tried the last bit!);

€ allocate a different handout monitor for each session;

€ in a workshop with sub-groups, lay handouts face down on the floor next
to each group and either tell them to pick them up when they have finished
their task or instruct them to pick them up at a given time;

€ in an open space room (moveable furniture) place the handouts in the middle
on the floor or on tables at the side and invite students to pick them up for
themselves or anyone else who would like one;

€ prepare them in sorted sheafs either with numbered pages or in different colours
so that quick and flexible reference can be made to each (of course this is the
beginnings of a workbook);

€ hand out half the number of handouts to the number of students and ask them to
read the handouts and discuss them as they do so;

€ similar to the above, but with two pages, hand out alternate sheets to alternate rows;
the task of each student is to familiarise themselves with the handout, the turn round
and run a two-way tutorial with the person behind them.

And, if you feel confident enough, invent new ones on hte hoof!

Incidentally, Phil Race and Sally Brown in 500 Tips for Tutors p 82-3
have an excellent section entitled Preparing Interesting Handouts.







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David Jaques
Trainer/Consultant in Higher Education
7 Stanley Road
Oxford
OX4 1QY
Phone/Fax: (0)1865 203255
email: [log in to unmask]

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