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Notetaking strategies

Amber Llewellyn

How do you all have your students take notes? I guess a question could be: how do your students take notes? I have tried almost all the strategies that I can think of, and if I am honest, it is an area in my teaching where I still feel I am trying to find my way. At the beginning of the year, I typically go over several different types of notetaking strategies, such as Cornell notes, outline notes, and mind maps. However, when I check my students ' notebooks, I notice that their notes are mostly a mess without any strategies employed. I have tried to give them fill-in-the-blank notes, but then they seem to check out of the discussion, and I am currently using digital notebooks that we complete together, and then I quiz on the next day, which seems to have increased their test scores. So is notetaking dead? 

Parents

  • I still make my regular world students take notes on paper.  I provide the outline from the PPT, but they are responsible for filling in with something (words, phrases, pictures, etc.).

    In my AP classes, students are presented with a basic heading and conclusion format to follow with multiple strategies available to take notes in the middle at the beginning of the year.  They still have to take notes by hand.  One set of notes is randomly collected on Fridays.

    Multiple studies have shown that taking notes by hand puts information into the long-term storage of the brain plus it forces them to condense what they are learning into something they understand.  In fact, one successful APWH teacher on our FB group used to do digital notebooks and went away from them to handwriting because her AP students learned so much better that way.  

    I still think it's an essential skill.  In the lower grades, tactile learning is considered essential, and I think notetaking falls into that category.  I also like to think of it this way.  We wouldn't tell math teachers to stop making students write down the steps in solving a math problem so notes are a similar step.

    Here's a link to my notetaking guide for my AP World History students if you're interested.

    APWH Notetaking 2022 - 2023.docx

  • in reply to Melissa Nowotarski

    What a great set of guidelines, @Melissa Nowotarski !  Thank you!  

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