My cooperating teacher takes this idea one step further and prepares guided notes for all of her students for each of the math sections she teaches. Every student gets a copy of the outline and is able to follow the lecture as the teacher fills in the blanks on the Smartboard. Using this method my cooperating teacher can highlight everything that is important. She can point out main ideas, and she makes sure that the students have the important parts of that day’s lesson marked. However, even thought her notes are very detailed and nicely organized, I see a big problem as a result of relying on this method of teaching.
First of all the students get very dependent on the teachers note taking skills. I wonder what happens in the following year when the teacher doesn’t produce guided notes and expects the students to know how to take notes independently. How about when they go in college?... There, they are totally on their own.
My first opinion is that the teacher should have started the year out using guided notes as a scaffolding strategy. She then could slowly take away her guided notes and then slowly allow the students to assume the note taking responsibility. Secondly, maybe the teachers in middle school spend more time making sure students understand effective note taking. I think students are capable of learning much more in their earlier years than we demand of them. Because I believe that student should be taught to take good, effect notes and because I am being asked to continue this practice, I am continuing to give students guided notes, but I am not putting as much details into those notes as did my cooperative teacher.
What are your opinions on guided notes? Do you think students are capable of learning effective note taking in the earlier grades? Do you think the students will be fine with the transition I’m making for them at this point in their career? Thank you for your responses.
Marina, I completely agree with you. I am seeing the same exact problem in my classes. I feel as though this generation relies too much on others. Whether it is the teacher, technology, parents, etc., the students are becoming less independent and more dependent on these factors. My cooperating teacher provides “skeleton” notes to the adapted students. These are the same as the guided notes you mentioned. The issue is, no matter how much it may be “hurting” the students in the future, with so many classified students it is difficult for teachers to not provide guided notes. For example, my cooperating teacher is required to provide skeleton notes as a requirement for their 504 or IEP. My suggestion would be to only provide the guided notes to the adapted or classified students. Your higher level students should learn and be able to take notes properly. In the end, we are preparing them for college and the real world, where there will be no one to take notes for them.
ReplyDeleteNote taking is a very important skill. I can ee where students are relient on the teacher's notes. My students are like that at the 8th grade level. Although, it is not as drastic as your teacher's Marina. My teacher guides the students and tells them which notes they must copy down in their notebook. The students are still reliable for actually copying down the notes. I think this is more effective than just handing them an outline. If they write down notes, it becomes locked in their memory. I would suggest to pull back on the detailed notes, and teach your students that they need to be responsible for their notes. I wouldn't do this drastically, but over time I would decrease the amount that you hand them in hard copy. They are high schoolers, they need to be a little more responsible.
ReplyDeleteI feel the training wheels need to be taken off at some point and the sooner the better. Students should no longer be spoon fed the information. Students at a certain age should be able to determine what is important or not. I am not saying that we should abandon all support systems of learning; but guide them rather then always telling them what they "need" to know. I would like my students to be able to take what I am trying to show them and adapt it for themselves.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the idea of starting them off with some type of model of how to take notes. Then gradually weening them off of the skeleton notes.
Marina I agree with you and everyone who replied. I think these kids are old enough now that they should've learned how to take good and effective notes already and if they haven't then oh well that is not your problem. The only students you should have to provide anything to are the kids with IEPs and the ones that need them. At some point they need to grow up. I remember growing up and I know once I was in high school none of that stuff existed anymore. When the teacher spoke you wrote down what you thought was important or you simply copied what was there on the board for you. In my 8th grade Algebra classes my teacher doesn't provide notes for them. We put some things on the board and examples and if not the students just copy down what we say and all our kids are passing with A's and B's. They're going to get to a point when they won't know what to do unless it's done for them and I think what you're deciding to do is the perfect solution. Transition them from what they had with your cooperating teacher to the way you want to teach them.
ReplyDeleteMarina I can see where many students rely too much on the teacher, but where I am student teaching I can also see why they scaffold the notes the way they do. They are classified as a school in need of improvement, and in the beginning of the school year (when I was not there), they would do PowerPoint’s, and point out exactly what was important from the material to write down. Now, there are some parts where it is still that way, but they are starting to figure out the important material by themselves to write down. I think this is a hard concept for some students to understand, and I have seen that many of the students have a very difficult time picking out the important information. I am in 7th grade life science. I think that perhaps it is a good idea to start this process earlier, but I do believe that it is good to wean the students from being told what to write down to having them do it on their own instead of just throwing them into doing it themselves. I have found that by just having them figure it out without any instruction on how to pick out key parts, they end up writing the wrong information.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Marina and with everyone else. I feel that students are being spoon fed a little too much today. I am in a middle school Spanish classroom, and most of the students are in honors classes. I usually have all the information up on the smartboard, but since spelling is very important, I sometimes provide vocabulary sheets that go along with my lesson. When I'm reviewing for the test, I still have students who tell me they never wrote down anything and don't know what to studdy. I feel that if I don't pass out the vocabulary sheet, they feel the information isn't important, even though I tire myself out telling them to write the information. This will definitely have a negative effect on them when they reach highschool and college and students should learn how to become more independent
ReplyDeleteMarina I agree with you. My students who are younger, 6th graders, understand that my expectation for them is to produce a certain level of achievement for themselves. There are always easy for students to learn bad habits, stop thinking on their own, take short cuts and think they are helping themselves by doing so...none of which I agree with because I find that students are capable of some much more when they learn from each other, develop new ways of understanding information and finding ways to investigate and navigate new info. Still when appropriate I supply students with a template for project work or assignments but they are the architects of the design. I don't lecture though I teach mini lessons, have many group led discussions, and project work after students work individually. Its a ideal situation that suits my teaching style. It all depends on how you will tech your students in the fall and what you believe they are capable of and how you wish to guide them through their academic journey in your classroom. Sounds like you will be a great teacher from the discussions we have had in class this semester.
ReplyDeleteWorking with high school seniors, it is expected that students should be able to effectively take notes. However, I have one class that is six students with IEPs. In each student's IEP it is required that they are given guided notes. Sometimes it is necessary, but you need to get to know your students to be sure that you are providing the correct level of scaffolding. With my class that I do provide guided notes for, I have found that one thing that is helpful and adds value to my guided notes is ensuring that the students can use those notes on future assignments. If I don't connect the notes to the text, there was no point in providing them.
ReplyDelete