Dr. Marzano makes a strong case that teachers should teach students how to take notes and uses visuals such as Venn diagrams and informal outlines. I have noticed that many teachers in my high school provide handouts of the notes for the students, and I think that this is detrimental to their education, in that it does not prepare them for the rigorous expectations of college. Do you think that teachers should be providing these handouts, or do you think that the students should be trained how to take notes? If you believe the latter is the better choice, how do you train students to take notes?
I put notes on the overhead and have students copy them, particularly for grammar topics. When I am giving culture notes, I put important names or dates on the board. Later, when I check the notes, I am finding that the only thing that the students write is exactly what I wrote on the board. This leads me to believe that Marzano is correct in that students do not know how to summarize information, selectively choosing the salient details and recording them. I plan to work on helping my students to develop this skill.
What are your plans in your classroom?
2017 NAEP: Summarizing Group Changes
7 years ago
Posts
3 comments:
Teaching students how to take efficient notes should be a priority beginning in the elementary years of education. Secondary education teachers have the difficult task of "unteaching" poor habits before they can provide instruction on good note taking. Maybe instructing students without providing any notes would force them to develop learning strategies, including note taking skills, that they can take to higher education with them.
Unfortunately, it has been my experience that the students are not required to learn these skills, so if we want them to know them before going into higher education, we have to teach them. In fact, there are many teachers at the high school level who print out everything for the students instead of teaching them these skills. I agree that not providing anything would be the best option, but I don't see it happening in today's schools. Too much emphasis is on getting students ready for minimum competency tests and not enough emphasis on real-life skills.
Again, I teach in a college atmosphere, so I get students after their high school experiences. Many know how to take proper notes and are eager to do so, but others seem to lack the motivation. I provide tons of links to websites that I use and I also provide many of the notes that we make collectively as a class on a Word document that I send to my students as well. They take notes at times and not at others. This way, however, there is absolutely no excuse for them not having the information-- I actually have documentation that states when I sent it to them.
Post a Comment