This chapter makes it perfectly clear that teachers should
provide students with clear instruction on note taking and note making. Many students do not understand the difference
between the two, and to be honest, neither did I until I read this
chapter. However, they are both skills
that can be taught. Note taking consists
of the students’ notes taken from a lecture or discussion. Note making refers to the gathering of
information from texts and other sources.
I have always taken a lot of notes, but I’ve never really considered all
of the different ways and benefits of taking notes. Outlining, acronyms, and graphic organizers
have helped me tremendously throughout my education. However, I never really took notes in
math. The book states that, “mathematics
is a language in and of itself and that the correct use of terms is vital for
comprehension” (pg. 127). I agree with
this statement, because when I was in school, I always had a lot of
examples. I wrote down every single example
the teacher gave, but I had no way of organizing the information and
definitions in math. If I had had a
system like the one on page 130 of Fisher and Frey’s book, I probably would
have excelled even more in math class. Another
interesting point that the book makes is the importance it places on teachers
giving students feedback on their notes.
This is one thing that I never remember any of my teachers doing, and we
very seldom received guided notes. One question
that I have is how are teachers supposed to find the time to check everyone’s
notes along with everything else that they have going on? Also, what are some
ways to make accommodations for ELLs and their notes?
Kaitlin, I also wondered how are we going to find the time to check students notes with everything else that we are supposed to teach, grade, organize, etc. For ELL students, I know that if we give notes, we should be able to have the notes translated (I believe that there are programs that will do that) but I would like to know how we are supposed to read an ELLs notes if they are written in their primary language? It looks like we both never took math notes and I completely agree with you on if we would've known how to take math notes, we could've done a better job with our math.
ReplyDeleteHi Kaitlin!!! I can relate to many things that you have written in your blog. A teacher has never given me feedback on notes and I really think that it would have helped me as a student to grow and to learn what to look for as the teacher lectured and ideas on how to have them structured.You also raised an interesting question about ELLs and their notetaking.How could we accommodate them? I would love to know!!!
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