Last September, we issued a call for information on handouts—how do you use them, how well do they work, what learning goals are they especially well-suited to accomplish? As with previous calls, you responded with an array of examples, advice, insights, and opinions. What’s clear from those submissions? Handouts play a wide range of different roles, and if anything, the pandemic has made what handouts accomplish in courses even more important. Here’s a rundown of the purposes handouts can accomplish, illustrated with your examples and explanations. The purposes do run together, sometimes overlap, and often a handout fills more than one role.
