teaching - Is it common to provide digital notes (slides or handwritten) for students?

I am preparing a lecture course for this semester and I am planning to teach from slides. I will consider these slides my notes for the course. However, the following points may also apply to handwritten notes that a lecturer might use as a reference.

I can see several advantages and disadvantages associated with providing the students with the notes for a given lecture prior to that lecture:

Advantages:

• Students have to write less (because the core of the material is already present), so more material can be covered;

Disadvantages:

• Students may lose focus more easily when they have digital notes because they do not have to copy everything down (this was my experience as an undergrad);


• Students may choose not to attend class because notes are available elsewhere (of course, they may choose to do so anyways...).

One alternative I have considered is to distribute all of the notes relevant to an exam some suitable time period prior to that exam. However, this may reduce the effectiveness of the advantage, although it will mitigate to a certain extent the disadvantages. So, my question is as in the title: Is it common for professors to distribute digital notes to the class? If so, what methods are common?

Answer

I used to distribute slides before class, and found that the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. I now distribute them shortly after each class. I tell students to jot down important points during the class, but not to worry about things like lists because they'll have the slides available. I also suggest that they merge their classroom notes onto the slides. The ones who listen to me tend to do very well.

I base my decision on the premise that learning should be effortful. I think, hope, and expect that providing slides after class is a compromise between no slides and slides before class.

As an aside, I also record my lectures and make the podcasts available. I do that because I have students for whom English is a second language, and non-traditional students who are sometimes called away for work. I'm a little torn about the recordings because some students do try to use those as a substitute for coming to class. I console myself with the thought that they were destined to fail the course anyway and would do even without the recordings.