The Research Digest Blog (Since 2005, bringing you reports on the latest psychology research) offers 9 Evidence-based study tips.
Few of the tips are surprising – having good sleeping habits is not particularly controversial – and a few are attitudinal – “Adopt a growth mindset” and “Believe in yourself” – but one caught my eye as it was for educators rather than students:
Get handouts prior to the lecture. Students given Powerpoint slide handouts before a lecture made fewer notes but performed the same or better in a later test of the lecture material than students who weren’t given the handouts until the lecture was over.
I suspect that, having seen the direction of the lecture, the students knew what was important (to the instructor, at least) and what wasn’t.
When I use google Presentation slides for my classes – I try to do so often, but only a few classes have functioning computers and projectors – I usually post them to the class blog or on edu 2.0, but that is after the class. I guess I will now post them a few days before class when I can.
Surprisesaplenty's Blog 
September 14, 2010 at 8:03 am |
Hi ho Brian! Actually I give them the whole lecture notes load for the semester in advance via USB and for many students it’s the first time they needed a USB. I deviate very little from those notes as they form most of the lecture. We read together in class and I ask questions about the difficult or new vocabulary with comprehension questions embedded in that too. This we also print out as the course text and study from in class through the overhead slides. Also I give the whole homework load for conversation classes in advance too.
For this year I added a new home study listening feature “the BBC 6 Minute English program” which rotates weekly as well as selecting one more BBC English learning activity per student’s preference from their extensive site.
An additional feature which has been some time in preparation is a group study schedule as part of general conversation class homework. I despaired at lack of out of class speaking practice so implemented groups of four on a random selection with a captain of each group handed a copied volume of “Business Communication Games.” Each four member group must meet once a week with another group for one hour of games and activities they select either from this text or websites such as bogglesworldesl.com They submit a short summary of activities along with each written homework assignment. It gives them some freedom and I get to delegate.
Cheers, Dan
September 16, 2010 at 6:56 am |
Good to hear from you, Dan.
sounds like a great list of activities.
As yet, I don’t think I am able to hand out an entire semester’s worth of plans and notes. I could have done so for my previous university – and the dedicated blogs I used for each year (first, second, third) did contain a lot of that info – but I am still adjusting a little to the new position.
Will I see you at KOTESOL in October?
October 8, 2010 at 4:41 am |
[…] sending a great deal of information to the student (including early drafts of lectures, which I previously blogged about) but I don’t see information transfer that couldn’t happen this year or last […]