In starting a new unit or topic it is important to discuss with students different ideas or details that they may already know abou
t it. “The instructional strategy cues, questions, and advance organizers focuses on enhancing students’ ability to retrieve, use, and organize information about a topic” (Pitler, Hubbell, Kuhn, and Malenoski, 2007, p. 73) and this ability to retrieve information is important to making lasting connections with the material. Creating these lasting connections and networks within students stays true to the cognitive learning theories. Creating teacher-made organizers with the most important material help students to focus their information and really help to allow students to discover the important information and seek out “higher-order questioning” (p.78). I believe that creating organizers and teaching students how to use them will allow students to understand information more clearly and have a longer lasting impact. The use of concept mapping is one way for teachers to organize information for their students about a topic and create ways to enhance connections to the material and in providing opportunities such as virtual field trips allows teachers to use this “powerful tool to create experiences and make rich connections to retrieve information” (Laureate, 2009).Summarizing and Note taking goes along with cues, questions, and advance organizers and also helps students while giving them the ability process information and translate it into material that they understand. Students should be taught ways to take notes from information given to them so that they most important information is retained. There are many students that I work with who’s notebooks and binders are so unorganized they do not even know what test we are studying for or what material to work on. There are times when we take time to organize notes alone to make it easier for retrieval and understand concepts better. Teaching students from a younger age how to take proper notes and how to pull out information that is essential to a topic will help them when it comes time for a class where a teacher does not give students many notes and mainly lectures. Students must be able to draw out the information that is pertinent to the topic in a logical and critical manner. Taking their own notes and creating them in a language that students understand helps to create a longer lasting learning rather than short term memory for a test.
Pitler, H., Hubbell, E., Kuhn, M., & Malenoski, K. (2007). Using technology with classroom instruction that works. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). Bridging learning theory, instruction, and technology. Baltimore: Author.
I also think that note-taking is such a vital skills for students to inquire when they are younger so that they know how to take notes throughout life while staying organized. For example, in the start of every year I explain to my students that as we begin new units they will fold the page in half and write the name of the unit. This is done so that whenever they need to refer back to a specific skill they know where to look. My biggest concern for students is when they do not know where to find something they wrote themselves. As a fifth grade teacher, I am still guiding them through note take half the time and the other half I am expecting them to do it on their own. For instance, sometimes I model to them the type of t-chart or webs I expect them to do throughout the lesson but sometimes I just say, "Remember all the note taking strategies you have learned, pick one that works for you and use it." Hopefully this sort of training I am doing with them now will help them next year in middle school because as you said note-taking can help them remember something for " a longer lasting learning."
ReplyDeleteVeronica
I agree with you that teacher-made advanced organizers help to guide students through a lesson. It is like ths syllabus we get, but more visual.
ReplyDeleteAnother way I have used organizer in a resource room of four students is to create an organizer in a power point presentation and as we reviewed it as a class, the students had to fill in missing information. Having to read it, state and write seemed to help my students remember the informatio better.
The fact that you said organizers create higher order thinking is very much true. I use organizers to help students remember more of what they read in their story and organize the information. Some ways I have used organizers are the use venn diagrams to compare and contrast different stories, and story maps to focus on the story elements.
ReplyDeleteI agree, teachers need to find ways to make lasting connections whereever we can to help our students.
ReplyDeleteI also have run into problems with my students that have notebooks, but are very unorganized when using them. I am going to try and take some more time at the beginning of every year, then, maybe a refresher after Christmas break on a variety of way for taking notes. It is like I tell my students now, every style may not work for you, you may have to try a couple different types to see what fits you the best. I like the idea of trying some fill in the blank as we go through note taking to help them get a better handle on it. The sooner they can get the idea down, I think it will only help them with retaining information they need to know. Concept maps are also another great tool I plan to use when starting a new unit and taking notes, even having the students creating them themselves.
ReplyDeleteI definitely think that it is important to try and connect new material with either old material, or something relevant to the students lives. This definitely helps students to store and later recall the information. I think if we as teachers spent a little more effort trying to build these connections we would see a lot more long term storage of information.
ReplyDeleteI agree that organization of notes is very important for a student. I, too, have students who lack any organizational skills whatsoever and seem to never know what to study for quizzes and exams as they cannot keep their materials together. For me, I always kept notes in outline format, because that was the way that I could understand and retain the information the best. However, some students prefer to use the Cornell method of note-taking, even though I provide notes in outline format. I have no problem with that, because it shows an understanding on the student's behalf of how they learn best.
ReplyDeleteOne requirement I do have for my students is that they create drawings in their notes of what is being covered. While these drawings do not need to be beautiful works of art (stick figures are appropriate) it demonstrates the level of understanding of the concept as well as gives them a visual aid to remember.