You may have noticed that quiz and test questions are designed to test whether students have actually learned the lesson material instead of whether or not they can memorize and repeat information back to you. Establishing a notetaking procedure will go a long way in helping your students develop their reasoning ability and master lesson material.
What tools can you provide that make notetaking an easy and effective part of your student's study skills? A simple form like the one below, created in a word processing application, is a great start.
Once you have created this form, be sure each student has a three-ring binder, divided by subject, and be sure they have enough copies of the form to get started.
To encourage thorough notetaking, consider the following suggestions:
• Allow students to use their notes while taking a quiz.
Older students quickly realize the benefit of this since even quiz grades factor into their final grade. They usually take full advantage of this by taking many notes. Younger students will need some guidance as to which information is noteworthy. Notetaking is a skill that develops with experience.
• Create a Special Project for Notetaking
1. Go to Grading and click on the student's name. Open the course and unit.
2. Open up the Subject and Unit. You should then see the lessons, quizzes, projects, and test.
3. At the bottom of the Unit, click on Special Project to open.
4. You will see a message telling you to enter instructions under Edit Note and Save Note.
5. Type instructions such as: "Bring notebook to teacher for grading." Click Save Note.
6. Block the assignment so the student cannot move forward without turning in a notebook for review.
To enter a notebook grade under this Special Project:
1. Change Blocked to Completed. Click on Special Project to bring up the Student page.
2. Type the grade in the question's Score box. (Note: If you do not see the Score box, click on F5 or refresh the screen, and then you should be able to type the grade into the box.)
• Play the Tally Mark game!
A very successful teacher of Switched-On shared this activity years ago. To encourage a student to learn a lesson's information, have the students keep score by making two columns: "Memory/Notes" and "Lesson Material."
After reading the entire lesson, watching all the multimedia, playing all the games, and taking thorough notes, have students attempt to answer the questions at the end. If a student can answer a question either from memory or from notes he's taken, give "Memory/Notes" a tally mark. If he must refer to the lesson, he would make a tally mark under "Lesson Material." The goal of this exercise is for students to have more tally marks under "Memory/Notes," demonstrating understanding of the material. After doing this exercise a number of times, students will also realize the value of their notes.
The ultimate goal of Switched-On, like most curricula, is to engage students in learning so they retain and understand the concepts presented, not simply to get through it. When you implement a notetaking procedure in your classroom, your students will learn a valuable skill that can serve them throughout their lifetimes.
