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Mark
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The past few years I've prepared and handed out "notes" to my first year Calculus classes. Each set of notes I leave incomplete to various degrees.

For the first part of the notes for a particular section I'll type out ~90% of the information, I leave "blanks" for the students to fill in. I try to leave out words and symbols in a purposeful manner so when the students fills in that blank they have contributed a "key idea"; for instance when defining an increasing function I might let the students fill in the inequality between two expressions. In this way they aren't wasting time copying down everything I say and do, but they are still involved in the note taking, and they are paying attention to my lecture to try and fill in those missing pieces.

In the middle section of each of my notes (here I'm usually doing basic/classic example problems, and proofs of theorems) I'll usually type the problem we're working and add in some leading sub-questions or "hints" on how to do each step, and I'll leave space on the page for them to write in the "work" of the problem. Some students choose to fill in this part as I do the problem on the board, others just watch me and then try to re-create the work later on their own time.

The last part of my typical note sheet will have some additional problems and space to work them but often little to no prompting or hints. These are often the problems that I'll do "as time permits" and are often harder/longer/more involved. My students learn that I'd like them to be able to do these problems but realize that most of the time their tests and quizzes will have relatively few problems of this type.

Handing out notes like these I get to feel like I'm not "doing everything" for them, and yet at the end of the chapter/unit/class they have a nice concise "best of" version of their text to help them know what I think is important for them to study.

Mark
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