Teaching a group class takes a lot of effort. That should not be a great problem to you as an ardent teacher. But if the most part of that effort goes to vain then that should be a problem to concern. And in reality that does happen most usually. 

How many of your students are actively taking the class notes? Can you find yourself the scope to browse those notes to find them as properly taken? In reality your students are expected to be very poor note takers! But what if the notes are not at all taken or very poorly taken? 

Well, you may think your students are listening to the class so ardently, and that is for sure to have a lot of benefits. Ok, it should have been so but again in reality it is seldom so unless all your students are exceptionally gifted. 

Whatever class they listen to, usually more than 80% of that gets flushed out of their brain or memory by about a day that is just the first 24 hours. At longer term it is something perhaps not even more than 10% of the total class they will remember! Does that not mean that the class almost went to vain? 

Every good teacher undertakes considerable effort to deliver a good quality class to his or her students. So it can never be any good idea to let the students forget the content delivered in the class. Teachers can adopt some measures to prevent this to a significant extent. Let us see some of the most available and possible options. 

The Class Note

Motivating and guiding students to take better class notes efficiently can be a very readily available solution that any teacher can adopt. Ideally they can teach their students on how to take class notes. This is vital for every teacher and students. It will also help to develop a new and more developed communication between the teacher and students. 

After teaching how to take better class notes there remains more to be done. Teachers need to survey each students’ notes to ensure that the notes are taken and taken in the right manner and format. Micro-level checking may not be always feasible or even required. But gross level scanning of each notebook also can reveal a considerable amount of information on the quality of notes the students are taking. 

The Class Handout

This is another great concept for taking a really good class, especially if the number of students in the class is quite high.  

Textbooks are usually already there for students to read and learn a subject. But a good teacher has many more things to say on the subject, or may be saying the same things but a little differently. That he speaks to his students in his classes. And that goes into the class notes of the students. Also that can go into some kind of printed class handout……

A teacher can prepare some kind of written class notes, or excerpts of what he will teach to his students in his classes. If such handouts are handed over to the students before the class, with a little time to read through, then the quality of class understanding of the students can increase to a manifold degree. Moreover, as the handout remains with them, then there remains lesser chances for students to forget almost the entire delivered class content. 

Students can revise the classes by those handouts and together with their existing textbooks, they get very good print resources to study and grasp the subject. And the chances of bad performances out of no note taking or inconsistent note taking or erroneous note taking gets almost eliminated by this process. 

But there are at least two downsides of this process. One is that the teacher needs to work quite a bit more for the classes he or she has to take. That can take much extra time and effort. And the other downside is that the students do not get the chances or need to take their notes. By taking notes, their note taking habits and understandings can develop which they can apply in some other occasions of their academic as well as professional life. There can be solutions to this second downside, and I will be discussing that later in this article. 

Let us now try to find out a solution for the first downside. Though there can be many teachers who would still like to take the handout approach. And there are many schools and colleges around the world, where these kinds of ideas are followed regularly for the holistic benefits of the students. Still, what can be another alternative?

The Podcast Alternative

Podcasting the class can become a readily available solution for the class note problem, and that also not at the cost of extra effort and time from the teachers. Let us see what podcasting is……

This is the definition that appeared on Google Search Page. So we can easily understand that a podcast is a kind of recorded audio file and usually that is distributed through the internet. Well though the distribution issue is optional, recording for the purpose of future hearing is the primary part. And as it seems that it is not supposed to be compulsorily any music file, or some entertainment file, but can easily be supposed to be files of academic or professional purposes. The applications of podcasts are actually too versatile to be listed easily. 

And among that versatility, one application can be like recording the classes and providing them to students for future hearing, revisions and references. The provisions can be made through the internet or not through the internet as per the process and policies of the respective institute or organisation or sometimes at the discretion of the teacher. 

There can be made arrangements to record the ongoing classes, and prepare them as ready to distribute podcast audio files. This can become a good alternative to both student note taking as well as class note handout. Though it can save the extra effort and time of the teacher, still here also remains a small thing to ponder. Let us see that.

Whatever the teacher teaches in the class is aided by the black board or white board, thus making the whole thing essentially audiovisual. The class notes taken by the students are also based on that audiovisual input. Even then handouts also are supportive to audiovisuals. But the podcast is just audio. 

It is true that with today’s advances in electronic gadgets, getting the notes in audiovisual mode is not that difficult. But that obviously involves more cost and complexity than recording just the audio. And there can be other issues like student usability or accessibility. 

Podcasts are better usable and accessible than audiovisual files. They take less internet bandwidth, less storage space, less screens, and they even have more flexibility in access and use by students. Students can even hear their classes anytime just using headphones. They don’t even need to engage their eyes, only ears will do fine.