Hand outs are well-planned duplicated documents prepared by a teacher for his students in order to promote their participation in the teaching-learning process. Well-structured handouts can be very valuable in terms of interests, motivation and record of information. Handouts are the following types.
Summary type: To reinforce the key words, key statements and principles.
Completion type: To enable the students to complete the information during the progress of a lecture: a) in blank spaces; b) on unlabelled or semi-drawn sketches; and c) in response to some questions.
Notes type: To enable the students to read through them, particularly in the absence of text books.
Assignment type: To assign work, home task, library work or field jobs.
Laboratory sheets: For a practical class to provide some motivational information, to suggest format of data sheets, tables of a analysis, questions for discussion, etc.
Worksheets: To state a problem and to give some hints to enable the student to start off and to complete a numerical design or an analysis.
Question shoots: To pose objective questions, generally multiple- choice type questions, together with response sheets if considered appropriate.
Hand outs may be given out to the learners at one of the following points of time:
Much in advance of the lesson presentation.
Just before the start of the lesson.
During the progress of the lesson, as necessary
Just after the completion of the lesson.
Much after the lesson presentation.
Giving out handouts much in advance is only like books. It is advantageous to do so if books are not available or if prior reading /working is necessary before attending the lesson presentation.
Handouts given out at the commencement of a lesson draw the attention of the class to the objectives and the content of the lesson. Handouts presented at the appropriate timings, either just before a discussion, sometimes just after a series of points have been raised or just after viewing a high film and at more than one point of time, maintain high level of attention, motivation and interaction. It is sometimes difficult to time the exact moment of requirement but it is by far the best technique. Giving out handouts just after the completion of the lesson leaves a record for the lesson which the student may or may not read depending upon the follow-up by the teacher. Hand outs given out much late for the requirement have no academic purpose.