Student reflections on preference and use of lecture notes and recordings

This study examines feedback from students about the use of Tablet PC technology in material science lectures to help us understand how students use available learning resources and to inform the creation of future materials. Students commented on their preferences for being given full notes or partial notes which were annotated during the lectures and also on how they used notes and recordings in their learning. Students presented conflicting views on which style of note-taking they preferred with a varied range of reasons for their preferences. Feedback indicated that students perceive that live lectures are important and that the distribution of complete notes and recordings were useful as revision aids and if missing a lecture was unavoidable. Suggestions were made that the technology could also be used to produce podcasts of key points and videos of demonstrations performed in lectures.