Teaching Tip #25

Talk While Giving Notes

For the same reason (but reversed) as to why you should write the notes, you should verbalize what you're writing.  Some students may have difficulty reading your handwriting; others may be auditory learners; others may need to write down the additional information that you mention but may not write down.

This also tends to prevent multiple "what did you write?" questions.  After three or four students ask this of the same word, their classmates answer in exasperated tones.

The additional explanations help a lot too.

Teaching Tip #24

Write Down Notes

It's one thing if you're a college professor in a class where lecturing to the students without writing anything down is the norm (like maybe a history class).
 It's another thing to do it to high school sophomores who are learning Eastern Civ and don't know spellings or names or dates and have never been exposed to a lecture and have difficulties keeping up with your verbal notes.

I've learned from my teacher's mistake - I almost always write down notes.  Even if I wasn't teaching math, I would do it.  Some students really need to see what's going on. Lecturing and expecting everyone to keep up with you and get the spellings down the first time you say them doesn't work out well when you're teaching a class with students of various learning abilities.

It helps the slower students keep up and the visual learners to understand what's going on.  I have a few students who read what I put down before writing it because they comprehend better that way.