Enhancing Lectures With Handouts

Traditional lectures continue to be the predominant form of teaching in most undergraduate classrooms. Traditional lecture can be defined as an instructor/professor standing in the front of the classroom and presenting material to the class, with or without the use of audio visual aids, such as slides. A common picture that comes to mind when we hear the term “traditional lecture” is an auditorium full of students listening to a professor or teaching assistant talk about the day’s material, potentially with little interaction from the students attending the lecture. At the United States Military Academy, we try to focus more on discussion of material than the standard “stand in the front of the class and lecture.” However, some courses lend more to traditional lecture than other courses. Additionally, there are times when a lecture is preferred for a specific lesson, even if a traditional lecture may not be the norm for that particular course. Generally the intent of a lecture is to present the material to students so they are able to understand the material for recall or application on an exam. During the lecture, students are usually encouraged to take notes for their review later in preparation for the exam. The problem is most students are not very good at taking notes, with research indicating the majority of students get less than 50% of the critical points in a lecture into their notes (Austin 2002). If the majority of undergraduate classrooms utilize traditional lectures to teach their students, what can be done to improve students’ notetaking, information retention and recall, or both? This brief literature review aims to demonstrate what research shows about notetaking during lectures, how to enhance students’ experiences with notetaking and learning during lectures, and to provide some recommendations.