The Research Digest Blog (Since 2005, bringing you reports on the latest psychology research) offers 9 Evidence-based study tips.

Few of the tips are surprising – having good sleeping habits is not particularly controversial – and a few are attitudinal – “Adopt a growth mindset” and “Believe in yourself” – but one caught my eye as it was for educators rather than students:

Get handouts prior to the lecture. Students given Powerpoint slide handouts before a lecture made fewer notes but performed the same or better in a later test of the lecture material than students who weren’t given the handouts until the lecture was over.

I suspect that, having seen the direction of the lecture, the students knew what was important (to the instructor, at least) and what wasn’t.

When I use google Presentation slides for my classes – I try to do so often, but only a few classes have functioning computers and projectors – I usually post them to the class blog or on edu 2.0, but that is after the class.  I guess I will now post them a few days before class when I can.