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 D to the blog. We’re trying to make the blog more user-friendly and easier to read. 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, reflect on how you would use this strategy
in your classroom.)
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?
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7 comments:
Version 3, sorry…
I struggled with this chapter. I was and remain still skeptical on the value of “note taking” as a way to “improve learning in the classroom.” Note taking took the joy of learning out of school for me because it focused on my two weakest areas: writing and reading. Notes helped me in college but never in school and the only reason they helped me in college is my profs did not teach from the “required text” and 80% of the test was from lecture not the text. So if you could not take notes, you were up poop creek without a paddle. In my classroom, if I have something the students need to have, I copy it for them as a handout. I do not require them to take notes.
This stems from my dyslexia and the fact that note taking takes great efforts on my part. I know that 1 in 5 students are dyslexic. So why would I put them through the same thing I went through? I often misspell words, I read slowly, I cannot copy notes from a board well at all, but can follow verbal points if outlined (if I have a laptop). In school, required note taking was such a laborious task, involving my total focus and concentration; I could not listen to or enjoy the lesson. When I was taking notes, forget about me participating in classroom discussion. This struggle plagued me from 5th grade even to this day. I loath note taking and will not do it for a PLC group or staff meeting. “Give me a handout or don’t expect me to have notes” that was/is my philosophy. Then people say prepared notes with blanks. I only listened for the blanks, and not the rest of what was said. I got more meaning out of handouts, activities and illustrations than I ever did from taking any form of notes. As for using notes to prepare for a test: teachers, please build the test from the textbook or get a different textbook.
That being said…
Some people value note taking and believe it increases student learning, they must not be kinesthetic learners. Summarizing what was taught in your own words, verbal or written is an invaluable skill for a child to learn. But I do not believe they should be thinking of this during the instruction or teaching time. This should be time set aside for a think, pair, share and reflective note taking. “How would you explain changing an improper fraction to a mixed number?” I ask students this when defining what a mixed number is each year. But I don’t continue teaching during this time at the middle school level; my college professors did continue teaching.
Sometimes I have students draw a pictorial representation of this idea rather than use words. After all, a picture is worth 1000 words. I don’t know how much I will focus on “note taking” in my classroom to be honest. I see the data, but recognize how little I used outlines. Beyond the Math journal I don’t see myself using note taking. If students are able to journal metaphors and analogies from the last chapter in this book, I don’t see the point of going any more into the note taking part of it. I might use the “Rule-based” and the “Frame” strategy as I find they are useful. Note taking and note taking formats I recognize some value but agree that not all students need to take the same amount of notes. Also, 1 in 5 may not able to focus on the instruction and take notes at the same time. I guess practice would help this skill, something I evidentially did not receive when needed.
Classroom Instruction That Works: Assignment 3
I have always been a firm believer in outlining and notetaking, but that it should occur only after an initial run through of the information one is trying to learn, never on a “first intake.” I believe that summarizing and notetaking, especially when done in small groups and a discussion format, really help with understanding and give the learner an opportunity to think about and clarify what they just learned, and fill in any information they might have missed. It also allows learners an opportunity to form questions about information and perhaps think about how it might apply to what they already know.
Outlining is a great way to organize information. I use that often in my classroom when reading for information, particularly something like the kids version of National Geographic where the structure of the information helps with the outlining and notetaking. We then use out outlining skills when writing research papers.
In this chapter I liked the different summary frames that were presented. I particularly liked the Problem/solution frame, because it asked the participant to think of other possible solutions to the problem. I think that these frames will help with my goal of using mentor texts in my writing lessons by modeling specific traits and skills for my students.
I do not believe that summaries and notes need to be written in words – nor do I think this book stated that. Our students are diverse learners; some have learning disabilities, some are English Language Learners, and some just struggle with reading and writing. I do think it is important that students are taught multiple ways to organize and present information learned, whether it be outlines, bubbles, comic strip pictures, sentence frames, etc, so that they can later choose a way of gathering information that works best for them. Looking at information in different ways will allow them to think more critically about the information presented, and perhaps develop some great questions that might change the way the world thinks!
Hi Sam and Louise,
Thanks for your comments. I've had quite a few conversations regarding these topics.
When I was in school, outlining and notetaking (remember those index cards???) never made sense to me, either. Even in college I didn't really understand how to pick out the important pieces of information. I don't believe I was every taught how to do this and if I was I was not taught well.
It is alway good for teachers to be reminded of the different learning styles and modalities. As Louise state, I also think it is beneficial for students to be exposed to a variety of methods to organize information. Then they can choose the system that makes sense to them.
I found the rule-based and frame strategies useful in my own instruction. I continue to look for ways to help my students find, evaluate and organize information. Given the access students have to unlimited amounts of information from the Internet, being able to evaluate, summarize and record the information (not just copy and paste as this is a violation of copyright and ethically wrong) in some manner is vital in their education. Having lessons and practice in these areas are what our 21st Century learners need.
Week Three: Summarizing and Note taking
This was an interesting chapter for me to read. I am a primary teacher and have always been a primary teacher. Many of these concepts feel like they are way to difficult for kindergarten through second graders. In the past few years our district has done a few whole district training's on Cornell Note Taking. While I hate to admit that I have not taken the information all that seriously because of the grade level I teach when reading this chapter I can see the value in starting students at an early age to begin thinking along these lines when they read and are read to, so they begin to understand how to gleam important information out of a text. I especially liked that the authors use a variety of grade levels when examples are given. There was a great example of a first grade lesson on note taking with The Three Billy Goats Gruff which really helped me to see how you can break down the concept to make it relevant for younger learners. By asking them specific questions to answer and then taking the answers that the students have come up with and turning that information into paragraph form it shows younger learners how to get important facts from text and how to “re-write” in a way to pull out important points that the reader wants to remember and use. I definitely do not use these skills enough in my classroom. I wish that in our District training we could have seen more of the value and how to simplify note taking with younger learners so that teachers at that level would have had more buy in and would have seen the value in what is being taught. By just reading this chapter I now can visualize other ways to use note taking with younger students so that it is valuable for them and makes sense to me. I think it is so easy as a teacher to hear a term such as “note taking” and to have a flashback of what that meant to me as a young learner. I have learned how much that term has changed and the value that is there for even younger learners.
Hello Margaret!
I agree with you 100%. You raise a great point in your comment about the district doing a better job of presenting the information so that ALL the teachers saw the revelance in their own instruction and at their grade level. This is a great reminder for us as teachers to be clear with the students and show them how what they are learning is important and useful to them.
I'm glad you found the chapter informative.
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