I remember being taught during student teaching to hand out papers with "take one, pass it back" or to the side or around or whatever. But in practice, this still means you have to count out the papers for the rows and wait for them to get back to the back of the room. I used a lot of handouts, so this was a significant waste of time for me and disrupted flow making transitioning harder.
I soon decided to put all my handouts for the class period in one set location in the room. Students quickly learned to pick up their handouts as soon as they entered the room.
Occasionally, a student would forget to pick them up, but then that student just got up and got what was needed.
When I grouped work for absent students, I just picked up one from each pile and paper clipped them together.
Another idea for saving time with handout distribution is to make one big packet of handouts for a whole unit. I did this once or twice and really liked it. But, there are two downsides. First, you have to plan it out well in advance to get the copies made in time. Second, students can easily leave the packet at home and not have any of the handouts needed for the day. This second problem can be addressed by having classroom copies available that students borrow during the class period and return before leaving. I used to keep this stuck to the white board with magnetic clips. When a student borrowed one, he would write his name under the clip.
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