As you know, every time we teach a class, we face the question of whether or not to provide handouts

Thoughts on Handouts

by Jacky Vaniotis

Published in the Summer 2005 edition of the Maine EMS I/C News

As you know, every time we teach a class, we face the question of whether or not to provide handouts. Further, we have to decide what, exactly, we should distribute. We have to make that decision based on a number of factors, which include, at least, whose “intellectual property” is involved and whether we have permission to distribute it, what our teaching method for the particular presentation is going to be, who our audience will be, the amount of paper and copying time involved, how far in advance of the seminar or class the administrator needs to have the originals for copying, and so on. And finally we need to decide when to hand the material out — before, during, or after our presentation.

For starters, we have to make sure that it’s okay for us to distribute what we wish to hand out. If it’s our original material, then it’s not an issue. But if we are distributing something that belongs to somebody else, we must get their permission. Most journals indicate either their copyright policies or a contact address for requesting copying permission, usually on the editorial information page.

When we are going to create our own handouts, we next have to decide the format. Many people use the “handout” option in PowerPoint, and provide a paper copy of most, if not all, of the slides from their presentation. Some choose to print just the slides, and others print the slides along one side of the page, and lines on which the students can take notes along the other side. This works very well for a lecture format, where the speaker will be presenting the material to the audience. Where it works somewhat less well, however, is when the speaker uses a question and answer format in his or her class. If the answers are going to appear on subsequent slides, copies of which are therefore available to the students in their handout packets, they no longer have to think about the questions during the discussion; they just read ahead to the next slide.

As an option for getting around providing all the answers to the participants in this kind of setting, some instructors create a more selective handout by “hiding” (i.e. not printing) some of the slides used during the presentation. Another alternative is to export the data from the PowerPoint presentation to a Word file. There we can format it into any style we wish, with as much or as little information included as we’d like.

Another concern is the question of whether students learn better when they are taking notes during a presentation, or whether they learn better being able to focus on the speaker. I tend to fall into the camp that believes students should be taking notes, as it forces more parts of their brain be actively involved in the learning process. On the other hand, as a student with a physical condition that makes taking notes by hand painful, I love getting the complete presentation as handouts. Then I can choose to add specific highlights as I go along, rather than have to take copious notes just to have a record of what I heard in the class! (So I’m admitting my hypocrisy — as an instructor, I want the students to be taking notes, as a student, I don’t want to have to!)

I happened to take a class at the spring conference at Sugarloaf this past April, where, after he was done speaking, one instructor handed out a summary of his entire class, with just certain key words blanked out. He took about 10 minutes at the end of the class to review the handout with the class, having us fill in the blanks as we did the review with him — which essentially provided a complete review of the entire presentation, reinforcing his material. I found this to be a very effective use of the handout concept.

The issue of time and resources spent on copying is a complicated one. Does it make sense to give every single student at a conference presentation, many of whom will never even look at the handouts again, 20 or 30 pages of printed paper? And the question becomes even more significant during a licensure program, when one thinks of the hours of time and reams of paper one would go through providing handouts for every single student in every class session.

I know that a lot of instructors and conference administrators here in Maine and elsewhere are beginning to provide their handouts on a CD, allowing the students the option of expending their own time and resources printing the handouts only if they wish to do so. While I believe this is an acceptable option for a long-running program like a licensure course, I see one drawback for a seminar or conference class as the fact that the student doesn’t have a paper handout at the time of the class, so can’t refer to it or make notes on it during the session.

And when it comes to providing a conference planner a copy of my PowerPoint presentation to burn to CD and hand out to everybody who comes to the conference, whether he goes to my particular class or not, I’m always concerned about the risk that somebody will take my hard work and use it to do his or her own presentations!

I find that, in this day and age of PowerPoint presentations, students have come to expect handouts for every program, and in fact, will usually rate it as a negative item on an evaluation if there were none. I’ve noticed that it matters less the content or even the quality of the handout than its presence. Students just expect handouts now. And, truth be told, so do I!