EDU 461/761
Making Student Handouts
Seven Quick, Simple Steps
to Making Student Handouts
Before jumping in and simply running copies or making handouts for your students, keep these important things in mind:
1. Make it simple; don’t bombard students with information or words. Learners need clear, concise explanations and directions.
2. Decide a common structure or heading to use for all handouts for your class; students are inundated with a gazillion handouts every day, so they need an easy way to identify your class work from all others.
3. Space and Pace the information, directions, and steps that you want learners to follow; logically and graphically organize items for students so that things appear in manageable chunks.
4. Do NOT assume they know where you’re headed or what you mean; provide them with some background knowledge to hook their learning to and a clear plan for what to do next.
5. Use font and type styles to stress key words and phrases; the reality is that kids will not read everything on the page, so you must guide them by highlighting key parts for them.
6. Make it fun! Use graphics to get them interested in the work you have planned for them. In today’s day and age of technology, kids are more visual learners than ever; use it to your advantage.
7. Run a spell and grammar check! Even published authors aren’t perfect, so don’t make the mistake of assuming that you are.
SOME FINAL ADVICE BEFORE YOU RUN TO THE COPIER:
· Print the handouts and set them aside for at least twenty minutes.
· After taking a break from what you’ve created, read it as is and look for places that could be cinched or explained more clearly.
· Follow all the directions you have laid out for your learners and make note of wherever you have difficulty; further instruction may need to be included in your lesson plans or you may need to model it for them.
· Make the final corrections or adjustments and reprint.