Don't forget to give feedback to each others' comments!!!
Assignment #3: Complete the 4 part assignment format as you read, reflect, and respond to Chapter 3 – Summarizing and Notetaking
ALL PARTICIPANTS PLEASE READ THE NOTE BELOW!!!
Although your course packet asks you to post to blog for parts A, B, C, and D…we are asking that you only post part C and D. We’re trying to make the blog easier to read and more user- friendly. Thanks!
A. Self Assessment of Current Beliefs and Practices: This component asks you to reflect on how and why you currently use the instructional strategies of summarizing and notetaking in your classroom. The intent of this is to activate your prior knowledge of your strategy use so that you can make comparisons as you read the chapter. Below are the questions to help you complete your self-assessment. (Complete – but do not post!)
• In what situations is it important for my students to summarize?
• What does summarizing help my students do?
• What do I do to help students understand and use the process of summarizing?
• What questions do I have about using summarizing in my classroom?
B. Read & Reflect “Research & Theory”: This portion of the assignment asks you to read chapter 3 and reflect briefly on your thinking after reading the “Research and Theory” section for summarizing and notetaking. (Complete – but do not post!)
C. Practice: Choose one of the specific “classroom practice” strategies or techniques shared in this chapter to teach to your students (If you are not currently teaching, you may share how you would use this strategy in your classroom) – please post a brief reflection of how this went to the posting labeled Week Three: Summarizing and Notetaking. Click on the “comment” link below.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: Use the following sequence of questions/promps to reflect on what you’ve learned about both the strategies presented in the chapter and what you’ve learned about yourself as both a teacher and a learner. Please post your brief reflection to the posting labeled Week Three: Summarizing and Notetaking by clicking on the “comment” link below.
How has the information you read in this chapter on summarizing affected your thinking about teaching and learning? What have you learned about yourself as a teacher and learner? Use the following questions to assist you in writing a brief strategy reflection:
• How has reading this information affirmed some of what you already knew about summarizing?
• What is something you now understand better about summarizing?
• How might you change how you use summarizing in your classroom?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
13 comments:
Cassandra - thanks for your comments. This is also one of my favorite chapters. As you stated, both notetaking and summarizing are very vague concepts for students. I know that as a middle and high school student, I never had anyone teach me specifically how to accomplish either skill. I love the way Marzano's strategies give students the specific skills they need to either note take or summarize.
C. I would have liked to try the “Exercise in Summarizing” in Figure 3.2 with my middle school students that I taught last year. They struggled with summarizing and taking notes as it was something still relatively new for them. For my high school students this fall, I would like to try some of the summary frames to help them to summarize a French short story or chapter from a piece of literature. The Narrative Frame would be useful for a short story, whereas I could see using an Argumentation Frame when we talk about topical themes such as marriage, drugs/alcohol, politics, etc. during our IB French studies. As far as Note Taking, I see myself using the Teacher-Prepared Notes for introducing a topic such as a specific time period in French History to give the students an overview as well as a structured example of note taking. I would also like to show my students the Student Notes: Combination Technique so that they can take more productive notes, especially when they are not provided with Teacher-Prepared Notes.
D. This reading has definitely affirmed what I already knew about summarizing: you need to teach how to summarize explicitly. Most kids need specific instruction in order to be able to successfully summarize. Now I understand better methods in how to teach summarizing strategies and different approaches to summarizing. After having this class, I will try using some of these strategies if necessary and I think that I’ll use it more often in my classes now that I feel more equipped to instruct and use summaries in my classes. Also, I can also see myself having students use more of the combination technique in their note taking.
Assignment 3
I very much liked the Argumentative Frame for summarizing. Since I teach Theatre Arts, one of the biggest challenges I face is getting students to actively define for themselves such concepts as what Drama with a capital “D” is and drama with a small “d” is. In other words, how do you know when a story is stage audience-worthy and when is it good rehearsal work or acting lab work only. The truth is that this kind of concept is key for young actors to be able to find their perspective and playing characters in the fictional context. But since actors themselves are constantly changing and growing, audiences’ sensibilities change continually for a myriad of reasons and it is good for students to be able to argue with directors, other actors and even the playwright and themselves for what they feel is the ‘correct’ way to play a character.
I would love to use this frame to have children play themselves, famous actors, an audience or a playwright and debate these concepts from these multiple points of view. I could see using this structure on small note cards over a series of weeks of rehearsal and then having the kids produce them and use them to debate with one another as a reflective activity.
Questions:
How is reading this information affirmed some of what you already knew about summarizing?
I always knew that summarizing was important to learning and that students seemed to have much more difficulty with it than I seemed to as a young student.
What is something you now understand better about summarizing?
I hadn’t really thought about how understanding the form of the material being read can help students to take notes and summarize more effectively.
How might you change how you might use summarizing in your classroom?
I definitely will go over the headings, subheadings and illustrations from now on in textual material and guide my students to address these when taking notes for themselves.
Thanks Gina and Jeff for your comments on summarizing….Just curious as to where you are posting from….what part of the continent…keep us updated :)
Both of you alluded to the importance of needed to teach summarizing explicitly to your students. I think this is something that teachers in our state have become more conscious of (thanks to high stakes testing) over the last several years. This chapter has been a wonderful resource in supporting teachers in how to teach summarizing in a more concrete way.
Based on the responses thus far, it seems that notetaking and summarizing is a bit of a struggle and an area in which students are still a little foggy even when they reach high school. This reinforces to me the fact that I need to be more explicit in my instruction at the elementary level as well.
We are still in Southern Africa until the end of the month. International education is not quite as test-driven as the US, although depending on the school, we do see standardized tests like ITBS, MAP, etc. being used. One of the strengths and/or weaknesses in these schools is the much higher level of teacher turnover than in US schools. While it can be refreshing for students to have different teachers from different backgrounds and experiences, it can also pose a problem of continuity of methods and curriculum. That is one of the reasons that the IB program is so popular as it offers a truly international education with external moderation that is portable on a global level.
Summarizing and Note Taking
C.
I want to try the Conversation Frame with both my literacy and language arts classes. It looks like a great tool to help students better comprehend the importance of dialogue and how it should help readers understand the character and plot of a story. I’m wondering if, after practicing the Conversation Frame many times, students could use it on their own stories to help them ensure that the dialogue they have included is an important part of their story, something that helps their reader better understand the character and plot.
D.
For me, this chapter affirmed that summarizing and note taking are important tools in helping students identify and understand what is most important in what they are learning. It was also a good reminder of the fact that summarizing and note taking need to be explicitly taught and practiced for students to become proficient and comfortable using them as tools. More than better understand, this chapter reassured me that there is no correct way to take notes. I have always struggled with the outline format, because of that I find it very difficult to teach the outline format. The informal outline has always felt more comfortable to me, which, of course, makes it more comfortable for me to teach. In my own classroom, I will be more relaxed about using the informal outline and less worried about “the correct way to outline”. Also, I am definitely going to continue teaching my students how to summarize, but now I have a few more techniques for summarizing.
C Practice: This chapter did a nice job of demonstrating the importance of summarizing and note taking and presenting numerous techniques for doing both. For years I’ve used guided teacher notes that are mostly complete but students fill in some key terms/concepts during discussion. I’ve never seen the Student Notes: Combination Technique, but I will definitely teach it to my students. For those who are more visual learners, I think this adds a nice alternative to the written notes. I also just like the idea of making them look at the information twice and process it in a different way. I liked many of the summary frames and can see where I could use a number of them. The Narrative Frame would be great to use with a short story or with many other forms of fiction. The Argumentation Frame would be fun to use in U.S. History especially around issues and events that have different interpretations. For example I have materials that both support and reject the notion that Columbus Day should remain a Holiday considering Columbus’ role in history. I could see giving different groups, different articles and having them create a summary using the Argumentation Frame. The various groups could report their findings to the class. Finally, I liked the information on Reciprocal Teaching, I know that students learn information well when they have to teach it. The four parts of reciprocal teaching, summarizing, questioning, clarifying and predicting, together really enhance student understanding. I could see teaching this technique to the whole class and then using it in group activities. I might even have groups of 4 and assign each student one of the four tasks. I think it would be a good idea for each student to have an opportunity to do each of the four tasks at least once. If the groups shared their responses with the entire class, students could learn from each others examples and the discussion around what makes certain responses strong.
D. Final Strategy Reflection: This chapter provided an interesting and in depth perspective on both summarizing and note taking. I really liked a number of the ideas presented. In both classes that I currently teach, my students could benefit from being taught how to summarize both by introducing the rules for summarizing and by modeling it for them. The chapter reminded me of the value of using a “think aloud” as an example of modeling. In U.S. History, I’ve had students take notes using Cornell Notes. They are a little like the Student Notes: Informal Outline except they have a summary section at the bottom like the Combination Notes, and they have a narrow column to the left of the notes column in which the student writes questions/main ideas. After reading this chapter, I plan to spend more time focusing on the summaries of the notes that students take. I like the discussion around being aware of the explicit structure of information as an aid to summarizing information. I think I could use the structure of the chapter more as a guide for defining how often and where student summaries should come in the note taking process. In general, this chapter has made me think again about the value of having students write good summaries and the importance of taking the time to train them how to write good summaries and then evaluate their progress. I really like the various methods the chapter presents for teaching both summarizing and note taking.
C.
In 4th grade note taking can be overwhelming to students. But I like the Rule-Based Strategy, in which with some careful planning as far as how you model and think aloud through some examples present almost a step by step form for the students that could greatly improve my student’s success in note taking. I’ll try using this first as we begin our study of the Oregon Trail. Too often in writing reports, for instance biographies, students tend to copy blocks of text because they’re unsure of how to put parts into their own words. With the Rule-Based Strategy this is part of what the students will glean from this, extracting the most important facts and rewriting them in words that make sense to them and that are their own. I also like the Narrative Frame for our Literature studies. Using picture books to model this and then do together will help clarify the different elements and their sequencing.
D.
This chapter certainly affirmed how I already felt as to the importance of good summarizing and note taking skills. At the same time it has reminded me that there are many ways to accomplish this but that specific instruction is always going to be key to successfully teaching this skill. I’ve always known how important note taking skills are but I’ve not always felt I’ve taught them as well as they need them. As a 4th and then 5th grade teacher, looping with my kids, I feel that I’m laying the ground work for an important skill they will need as they enter middle school. I feel like I’ve always worked hard at this but now see I may not have been working smarter at this. With the specific instruction laid out in this chapter and careful modeling I think I’ll be much more effective in teaching summarizing and note taking.
Chapter 3
Part C:
One strategy that jumped out to my in this chapter that I will use in the upcoming year is: The Narrative Frame. I can just picture how this would fall in line with the new reading adoption that my district will have for us this fall. I love the example of the 1st grade teacher and it got me already thinking of how I can use it with some of my stories that I will be using. I love the questions used in the Narrative Frame and then taking the responses from the questions in writing a summary. I can picture myself modeling this very explicitly. Then taking it piece by piece slowly. Then once I feel some of my students are ready they can try it independently while I continue to work with those that need the extra help. This is such an important tool that I want to make sure all my students understand it.
Part D:
As I was reading this chapter I realized that summarizing is a skill that I felt I have done well but realized there is so much more to it that can be so much more powerful for my students. Teaching in 3rd grade I had to be very explicit in how I taught summary and I did it at the very basic level. But teaching fifth grade in the upcoming year I realize I can take some of the many strategies in this chapter and use them. I alway love adding to my tool box. Again, one thing I would change of how I use summarizing would being even more explicit in my teaching. The overriding theme that has jumped out to me in these first two chapters in being more explicit then I already am. Summary is a hard concept to understand but one that is so important for students to understand to make them a better reader. If students can being to master summarizing then it will help them as they move through school.
Cassandra – great point about how important it is to explicitly support students at the elementary level…our middle and high school counterparts will be very appreciative :)
Gina – It definitely sounds as though you a part of a great educational program that benefits both students and teachers!
Thanks for your comments - Heidi, Colleen, Chuck, and Rhett. I enjoyed reading each of your great ideas on how to incorporate these summarizing strategies into your classroom instruction. I think this chapter gives us all some very helpful strategies to teach summarizing explicitly for our students.
Post a Comment