The upsides to working with a lap book as a study aid

Abstract

This research assesses the utility of lap books as a didactic aid in teaching crowded classrooms with specific reference to the participation level and academic achievement. The study was carried out over three terms of high school English classes in a school in Quito, Ecuador; the assessment of results was done both through oral lessons and by end-term written tests. Results also reveal that lap books foster better performance in tests in terms of an increased number of high scores and reduced lower scores in subsequent years. Combining constructivist learning and differentiation as a teaching approach, lap books enhance student participation as well as foster individual learning styles that make the content more easily understandable and retained. The change that was observed across terms indicates improved overall performance, and the existence of lap books facilitated equality in terms of high grades. Consequently, based on such findings made in this study, it is recommended that the development and use of lap books can be adopted as a more conceptually appealing approach for enhancing students’ learning in situations where a more direct form of one student/teacher ratio, interaction is due to large group sizes.