This week's reading revolved around cognitive strategies which can help our students learn information. The set of strategies were: cue, questions, and advanced organizers and summarizing and note taking. Cues and questions are important in teaching for assessing prior knowledge and to help our students make connections to what they already know. Questions help set the stage for what is to come in the lesson and once the lesson is taught, can help to assess understanding of materials presented.
Advanced organizers or concept maps help to organize the materials and visually show the connection between information that at times can be overwhelming. There are many types of organizers that we can use with our students and chapter 4 in the text, Using Technology with Classroom Instruction that Works (Pitler,Hubbell, Kuhn,&Malenoski, 2007) has many web site which offer examples.
Note taking is a skill that, I feel, should be taught early on in schooling. I teach high school and I can not tell you how many students do not take notes correctly. After struggling to get my high school students to take notes without missing important information, I now follow one of the recommendations the authors stated in this chapter and that is to provide the students with an outline of the chapter and "teacher prepared notes" (page 120) I leave space on the outline for the students to add their own interpretations and notes but I outline the major points that will be discussed in the chapter. At the beginning of the school year I explain that my outlines are just a starting point and that it is their responsibility to add notes, examples, and ideas.
Technology can help with these strategies by having web sites which offer templates for outlines, concept maps, and spreadsheets.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
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I agree that it is frustrating when students do not know how to take proper notes as it is such a vital skill that needs to be taught early on! I have been in a number of classrooms where the teacher does stress the importance of taking organized notes and makes reference to the "Cornell" form of note taking. I think that it is great that you are getting students started by giving them an outline to highlight the important information as well as leaving room for students to write their own interpretations. I also agree that technology can be a good source for students to use to organize their notes!
ReplyDeleteChristine
I haven't considered how important it is for students to just learn how to take notes at a younger age. I teach fifth grade and we use graphic organizers and other things as we are learning, but typically do not just take notes as we read. I think I am going to start showing them how to take notes, especially if they are my notes with spots for them to add information. I think that will help them a lot as they go into middle school and high school. Thanks!
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