IF YOU WANT TO:
Periodically borrowing lecture notes from several students in your class.
The best way to select students' notes is at random. Faculty members who have used this technique warn that it can be a very chastening as well as useful experience. "There was an incredible difference between what I thought I had said and the points I thought I had stressed, and what the students heard or felt was important to write down," one faculty member reported.
This exercise can be especially useful if previous student evaluations have indicated: (1) your lectures are not as well organized as they might be; (2) students find it difficult to identify what is most important; or (3) your lectures are so tightly packed and delivered so rapidly that it is difficult for students to take good notes.
A variation on this suggestion is to audiotape the lecture as well. This allows you to do a three-way comparison between what you thought you said (or intended to say), what you can hear yourself actually saying (including the way in which you said it), and what a random sample of students thought you said (or thought was important enough to write down).
Limitations on Use of Suggestion
Copyright 1983 by the Regents of the University of California