h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The quality of my lecture notes was often an indication of the quality of lecturer.

The Chemistry lecturers tended to be reasonably good as most of chemistry was just endless formulae which had to be written on the board and thus copied with a few anotations. They'd usually give you enough time to copy everything down as well. However, understanding and remembering what they were going on about was an entirely different kettle of fish. This required a certain amount of work on my part, and like maths, required practice to get right.

The quality of my Biochemistry lectures varied enomorously. This is probably also a reflection as to how much you were required to know in this subject as you could go into it quite deeply, if you see what I mean.

Only one lecturer I can think of actually made a point of efficising (spelling) was was reuired of us. He'd actually give us a syllabus of what we needed to know and went through each point accordingly.Many lecturers also showed us a syllabus, but never long enough to know what was going on. I think part of this lecturers success was that he gave more structure to the lectures giving each point its own time and not overindulging in one particular area too long.

There were some lecturers who gave too much information so it was difficult to discern what was important and what was not. Some would show a slide and ramble on for far too long and so I ended up with no dessent notes. I tend to find it easier to copy slides rather than try to write down what a lecturer is saying. That form of note taking requires good short-term memory and listening abilities after a heavy night. Yet some lecturers could just talk a get away with it because they talked in methodical manner so taking notes wasn't such a rush. One lecturer would show a slide, give handouts and talk and the three things didn't match so I spent a huge amount of time going through the handouts trying to find the slide, finding it wasn't there, trying to find an appropriate page in the handout that matched what he was saying and couldn't find that either and then forget what he had said so could write it down anyway. Then he confuse me by going to something on the handout or slide. Those lectures were quite confusing and made revision harder.

One lecturer also wasted a huge amount of time trying to get a laptop to work and would have been better off with overheads. It is always inevitable that at least one slide in a lecture will be upside down. Overheads are probably best for lectures as parts of them can be covered and uncovered when necessary thus keeping a pace to the lecture.

Those I regard as my "worst" lecturers were the ones who merely talked about what was on their handout, and that was as comprehensive as it got. I got to the stage of going in, grabbing a handout and leaving.
The best have a handout with the main bullet points, or the headings under which they're going to discuss, and then elaborate. The very best make everything hold together and come alive, and don't get the students confused in the chronology (I'm a historian), and are enthusiastic - my ancient history lecturers are fantastic, and often appear to be bouncing - and can give their own insights into any debates surrounding the topic.

Surely 'an historian'

they teach me history - not grammar!

[General for waiting so long to respond]

I think DMS's examples really show the importance of the *relationship between* handouts, slides, and the lecture itself. In the case of your Chemistry, do you think it would have been better if the main equations were available in handouts, so that you could concentrate on understanding and noting down what they actually meant? This could also solve the problem of knowing what's important: if the *important* parts are in the notes, the *interesting* parts only in the lecture, and just the overall structure on the slides, perhaps it would be easier to keep track of. What do you think?

As for the format of the slides, I guess the key message is "only use what you know how to use". If they want to take advantage of technology, that's to be encouraged, but they should learn to use it properly rather than just jumping in!

[IMSoP]

Handouts for Chemistry may be a good idea (actually thinking about it a few - very few - may have used them, depending on what they were teaching). However, Chemical structures and formulae are quite difficult and time consuming to write out on computer and so it would have been easier just to write them on the board. Also the lecture halls for Chemistry weren't overly well setup for PowerPoint, or even overheads. Or at least the lecturers just couldn't be bothered and kept to the more traditional chalk and blackboard approach. The important thing though isn't how the information is displayed (I didn't mind the blackboard approach too much as they gnereally put down what you needed to know at the very least) but rather that the point gets across effectively.

I certainly agree that it doesn't matter what form the information takes, it's only in terms of where and when you get it. And the slides are probably the easiest to work without, since you can build it into other parts of the lecture.

But by the same token, I don't see why handouts have to be computerised - I was just suggesting that the lecturer drew out the formulae and diagrams and photocopied them so that you could write down the bits that were actually what you were being taught (on the grounds that if you just wanted the formulae, you could pay £10s for the text-books rather than £1000s for a degree...). But maybe you disagree, and can see the point in copying them, I dunno...

Can't see much wrong with that other than the lecturer's handwriting might make it intelligle (spelling? I feel sometimes there should be spell check on this site).