on course handout: “what’s going on?”

Are your handouts delivering only content from the presenter to participants?

If your handouts are only delivering content from the presenter to the participants, then you’re missing a golden opportunity for adding both engagement and structure to that engagement.

Should you provide training handouts to your training participants?

Providing training handouts with all of the information allows your participants to multitask or daydream. Using handouts with some missing information that needs to be filled in can help keep participants engaged and active in the learning.

Why should I use handouts instead of slides in training?

In this way, you can keep your slides free of text that would otherwise clutter your visual presentation in the training room and people who have your handouts can walk away with information that you may not have been able to fit on your slides.

Are handouts adequate?

Many handouts are perfectly adequate… but who wants people to walk away saying: “That session was… adequate”? Here is an example of a peer observation form that is perfectly useful and adequate: This is also an example of my earlier point that handout design is a natural extension of instructional design.

What is thinking handout?

Thinking handouts are a one-way form of communication. If your handouts are only delivering content from the presenter to the participants, then you’re missing a golden opportunity for adding both engagement and structure to that engagement. Beyond just a channel to deliver content, handouts can be used to structure peer-to-peer interactions ...

What is a handout in peer to peer?

Beyond just a channel to deliver content, handouts can be used to structure peer-to-peer interactions (here is an example of a feedback form that helps give structure to a peer-to-peer feedback activity): and here is an example of how a handout can turn into an accountability tool for next steps following your session:

Is it a bad idea to make your participants “earn” your content?

As I mentioned in the first point above, it’s not a bad idea to make your participants “earn” your content. Providing training handouts with all of the information allows your participants to multitask or daydream.

Is PowerPoint the same as training handouts?

1. Thinking PowerPoint slides are the same as training handouts. PowerPoint was never invented to be a document creation tool, yet this is one of the most common “resources” I see distributed in both conference sessions and training presentations: