Note Taking

[Connections]

Do you have your students take notes on all of their assigned high school reading in science and history?

 

If not, when do you require/encourage note taking?

 

Thanks,

 

[regentrude]

I have my students take notes on the assigned reading from their history and science textbooks.

I do not have them take notes on any other assigned reading, non-fiction books or literature.

[ThatHomeschoolDad]

Started DD doing Cornell notes last year. Seems like a lost art, and you just know there's a w i d e variety of activites going on behind all those open laptops in big college lecture halls.

[Hoot]

I am requiring note-taking in Biology this year, but nothing else. 

[mom31257]

I'm having dd take notes from a dvd course this year, but honestly, I've just let her figure it out herself because I felt like it's something personal that's got to work for you. She takes too many note, though, because she can stop the video. I'm going to have her take a look at these and see if they will help her simplify it and pare down. She's got to learn to do it before college. 

[lewelma]

I taught my writing-phobic son to take notes *in* his science textbook.  Basically to use the headers to write questions and then number the details in the paragraph.  He also often transfers details from the paragraphs into the diagrams or graphs so he only has to study them.  I have taught him to memorize the material (definitions, chemistry equations etc) on the day and then review the following day and 1 week later.  I am trying to teach him to use his notes for more than just cramming at the end.

 

I have also had him create a single sheet summarizing the entire year which he adds to at the end of each chapter so that he does not loose track of the forest through all the trees.

 

He began taking notes in 7th grade. 

 

Ruth in NZ

[Nan in Mass]

I taught my writing-phobic son to take notes *in* his science textbook.  Basically to use the headers to write questions and then number the details in the paragraph.  He also often transfers details from the paragraphs into the diagrams or graphs so he only has to study them.  I have taught him to memorize the material (definitions, chemistry equations etc) on the day and then review the following day and 1 week later.  I am trying to teach him to use his notes for more than just cramming at the end.

 

I have also had him create a single sheet summarizing the entire year which he adds to at the end of each chapter so that he does not loose track of the forest through all the trees.

 

He began taking notes in 7th grade. 

 

Ruth in NZ

 

I began by trying to have them take notes from their history textbook (Spielvogel).  It was quite obvious that that was not going to work, despite having outlined Kingfisher.  I quickly gave up with the older one and just had him read the questions before he read the chapter.  Obviously, that was the point at which we should have stopped trying to get through a certain amount of Spielvogel until we had note-taking down, but it didn't seem to me that he was ready to do that at that point and I'm not great at history.  Later, when he had a science textbook, I did take the time to teach him how to take notes.  It was easier with a science textbook.  Which were details and which main points was somehow more obvious.  Youngest did something else for history and note-taking wasn't an issue.  He did the science textbook with the older one and then in 10th grade, to prep for cc science, we worked on it again, this time in more detail.  I showed both of them how to take Cornell notes but neither of them liked that method and neither do I, really, so finally I just taught them what I do, which is very like what lewelma describes.  In the margins of the book, I made them label each paragraph with its type - introduction, real world application/why you should know this/hook, concept, detail, example, application, overview, conclusion, definition, and so forth.  Then I hadthem write a question in the margin next to any important paragraphs and underline the answer in the paragraph, or if that didn't work, write out the answer under the question.  Some paragraphs obviously need more than one question, but most of them just need one.  I taught them to think of the questions who, what, when, where, and especially why and how to figure out how to write the questions.  "How does blank work?" is a common question.  I also took them quickly through the Robinson book, which shows how to rewrite notes in various ways as a way of "studying".  This is a way of studying that appeals to my youngest, who wants to be doing something.  I read the chapters out loud together with them, with the book across both our laps and them holding the pencil and me directing what to write in order to teach them this.  I ignored the whole question of taking notes from a lecture and sent them off to community college with instructions to write down anything the prof wrote on the board, any assignments, definitions, example problems, and anything else that seemed important.  When they got to univerisity, note taking turned out not to be an issue because all the prof's put their lecture powerpoints on-line for the students.  Youngest had a smart pen for his first chemistry class, which made him feel much better, but he caught on fairly quickly.  I think the important part was learning how to write questions for the paragraphs in their science textbook, and before that, learning to outline.  Oh, and we also worked on writing an abstract of a science article and on giving an oral summary of a science article.  We did that weekly for a whole year.  I've asked my sons what was most helpful and they say learning to write an abstract and learning to put their notes on a whiteboard to study for exams.  What I learned from the whole process was that it is important to stop and learn to take notes, even if it means learning less content for awhile, and that taking notes does not have to involve a lot of writing, and that "studying" does not have to involve reading and rereading the chapter - it can mean reorganizing and reducing one's notes to make sure one understands all the aspects of something and the connections between things, picking out which bits to memorize and memorizing them, and making sure one sees the whole picture and how these pieces fit into it.

 

Nan