Step 2: Employing Handouts to Support Diverse Learners

Students bring different levels of experience to their courses, so inclusive instructors provide the supports that a wide array of students need to be successful. They provide extra scaffolding to those students who need it and extra challenge to those students who are ready for it. Dan Levy uses course handouts as “a vehicle for the students to learn in class” and “a study guide after class,” as well as appendices that go beyond the course content “for the interested student.” With this one tool, Levy helps the many different learners in his classroom. 

Profiled: Dan Levy, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, teaches "Advanced Quantitative Methods" to 74 students at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Takeaway Tips

As you create handouts for your students, build in extra support for students who don’t have extensive experience in your discipline. You might include a “cheat sheet” with important information or formulas in each set of lecture notes, for example.

Include resources for students who do have extensive experience in your discipline (e.g., bonus problems, thought experiments, further readings). 

Provide students with a lecture outline (headings and subheadings of lectures and blocks of blank space below them) so they know to listen for the most important ideas and can write down key takeaways without drowning in potential information to be copied. Outlines provide needed structure for students while leaving room for them to make meaning of the course content. 

 Insert diagrams, equations, and complex problems into handouts or a teacher-provided appendix. This helps students extend their learning and controls for errors that students might otherwise make when copying detailed information from the board.

Related Resources

A tip sheet from Ohio State University provides background, guidance, and examples of guided notes.

View the guided notes handout that Professor Levy used in the class session in the video above. 

CAST’s guideline for comprehension provides useful guidance on how to structure a guided handout.

Reflection Questions

What supports do you currently provide to help students organize their thoughts and their notes? Which students benefit most from these supports?  

How might you rethink these supports to help all students?

Lecture handouts are a helpful tool for supporting both students who struggle and students ready for more challenges. In the next video, we’ll learn about another way to use handouts to support student learning.

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