Dual coding was described as the process of incorporating images to text to help students remember what is being taught. Its a visual hook. I try to apply this when applicable but it is often hard with certain abstract math standards. I try to summarize my lesson everyday. Actually, I have my students summarize what standard we discussed that day and how to apply that knowledge. I believe that bringing students back together at the end of the class to summarize what they were suppose to learn is important for recall and to find any misconceptions. Above all, I believe that note taking is the most beneficial to high school students. I say that because I think that manipulatives and visuals are important for younger children. I wish that note taking was a class that all freshman were required to take. Students with organized notes and good note taking skills are more successful in class. I am not a huge fan of giving instructional maps or graphic organizers because I believe this hinders students in the long run. Any student going to college must learn to take notes. For many jobs, good note taking is also essential. I am also a firm believer that when someone writes information, they have better recall of that information.
To summarize, the strategies that are involved in cognitive learning are good skills for teachers that want to get the most out of their lesson. We must be careful, however, on making life to easy for students. We must prepare students for the next level. I believe that education has lost that focus over the last decade. Giving high school students their notes and not requiring them to do work outside of class is preparing them for failure.
I agree that students need to be taught how to take good notes and how to summarize information. I am trying to do that with my middle school students this year. They seem to think that they need to copy everything I say word for word. I have been working with them on picking out the key points and even putting things into their own words so they understand it when they go back to read over it for a test. They always ask me to just give them copies of the notes; however, I am also a firm believer that in order to recall it, they need to write it down themselves.
ReplyDeleteI applaud your effort in regards to teaching note taking. I wish more teachers would do the same. I have students that are sophomores in high school that have no idea how to take a note. They think the will remember it or want to write everything down. I could not agree more with you that writing helps the memory. I told one of my classes that if they did not have a formula memorized by the next day they were going to write it 100 times. I asked a random student and they missed the formula. I had them write it 100 times. A week later, they all remembered it.
DeleteI agree that note-taking is a skill that many high school students do not have. And you are right, the students that can take good notes, and that understand what information is note-worthy, are usually the better students. It is one of those things that falls to the wayside because we are trying to get so much content across to prepare for all of the big state tests. I do agree with our textbook when they say that the more the notes, the better, and that what information should be in a student's notes should not be a secret. I also agree with our textbook when they say that notes should be a work in progress. Many teachers do not want to give students an outline of the notes because they are "giving them all of the answers". But really, if they have an outline in front of them, they can concentrate on the information that is important to retain and add information as the lecture or class discussion plays out. Outlined notes are also a GREAT adaptation for Learning Support students because then the students can concentrate on listening and reading the information (two modalities!) instead of concentrating on the spelling of diifficult content area-related wording.
ReplyDeleteI also agree that outlined notes are great for students with learning disabilities. I think the older a student gets the more they should be held accountable for their own note taking. By the time they are sophomores, I should not have to furnish them with notes. This is a skill that they must learn to be successful. I am speaking of non special education students.
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