Teaching note taking--help

[dovrar]

Hello all,

 

  Please someone tell me that I am not the only one with a child that says they cannot take notes. My husband says that he understands because if he takes notes while listening or reading it stops his train of thought. Any ideas as to how to teach ds? Dh is no help, he says he's not good at taking notes either.  ; )

 

Thanks in advance! :bigear:

[Hilltopmom]

There's a note taking section in the How To Be a Superstar Student series.

 

I googled "note taking lesson plans" for ideas whenI recently taught a few kids this.

Also check out " Cornell note taking".

 

We did a few simple lessons on topics they we're familiar with & I modeled taking notes on a separate whiteboard as i lectured.

 

Now ds is practicing using Great Courses lectures. We have not done note taking out of a textbook yet, just lectures.

 

I too, learn better when I takes notes. But not everyone does. Some people prefer to record lectures & note take later so they just listen during the lecture.

I love the newer trend in professors handing out handouts of their notes or PowerPoint slides so that students don't have to rush to take notes during lecture, but can concentrate on the lecture & just jot their own extra notes in the margins.

I would teach him to be sure to read the reading before each lecture, it makes it much easier to understand the lecture & have decent questions afterwards.

Edited February 5, 2016 by Hilltopmom

[Cosmos]

I never take notes actually *while* reading. I complete a section or a chapter, then look back and write my notes on it. My ds does the same.

 

Ds is just this year in 10th grade getting pretty good at writing efficient but thorough notes from a textbook. So I think it takes a long time to get good at it!

 

After your child has finished reading a chapter, ask him what were the main ideas or points. Then ask him to write each point and several details for each one. Cornell style works well and you can experiment with other methods. Ds has found it's best to focus his notes on the ideas -- new vocabulary (common in science books) goes on a separate page. When ds started, I would take notes on the same section and he would compare them. They weren't very good at first and it took him a really long time.

 

As I said, it has taken him years to get competent. I didn't realize what a difficult skill it was, but it is, or at least it can be for some people.

[AngieW in Texas]

I teach Integrated Physics and Chemistry at a high school and I've found that most students struggle with note-taking. I make note-taking guides for all of my classes. It's like a fill-in-the-blank version of notes. As I'm talking, they are supposed to fill in the blanks. 

 

It looks a lot like the note-taking guides you see here (and I've used these guides in some of my classes):

http://www.gpb.org/files/pdfs/gpbclassroom/physics/note_ep801.pdf

 

If I don't give them some kind of guide for their note-taking, they will either try to write down everything (and have no idea what's going on) or they will write down nothing.