It’s the 21st century and note-taking has been called into question in the teaching-sphere. Do students still need to learn how to take notes on their own if the world has become increasingly digital? Can we kick the pen and paper to the curb? A quick Google search can find you endless articles that argue for it’s importance or even complain that it isn’t necessary. You’ll also find universities posting on how to take effective notes on their websites (Penn State, UNSW Sydney, Virginia Tech, Oregon State, etc…)
As this is a personal blog, I’d like to make it very clear that I am recounting my own experience in the classroom and personal opinions on the matter. This is a topic that is very well covered by professionals. I’d love for my experience to enrich your own approach in your classroom if possible. We have different students but maybe my little tools can help you out in your own battle to get your students taking notes as well!
Getting the kids on board
With almost anything, explaining my reasons behind classroom or lesson structure gets more buy in from my students and makes the whole learning experience better. I even market my own class on the first day of school. I reserve the right to be the leader in my classroom and not have to explain every single decision but I earn so much trust from my students when I do make the effort to explain “the why” behind my class. In the first week of school, I tell the students that I want to help them to learn skills outside of a social studies class. I market my class as important human history but also a class where they can learn transferable skills. Not every graduate needs to know who George Washington is to get a job but they do need to know how to think critically.
The kids all agree with me until I say “in this class, you will become good note takers.” MOANING AND GNASHING OF TEETH! Students hate taking notes for a few different reasons:
- It’s hard work (physically and mentally)
- I would argue it isn’t hard work physically but any physical work for some students is too much to ask 😛
- They don’t know how to do it effectively and so they feel dumb
- They fear that they will perform poorly on future tests because their notes are incorrect
Listing those out and asking students to add to it might help them realize their own hesitation in learning to be a good note-taker. Then I explain that all of these points can be overcome in time. (If they are too lazy, that’s a personal problem that I hope I can help them overcome too!) If they can become good note-takers, all three points become moot.
I also like show them all of the universities that post about note-taking. You don’t want to be the student at college who is having to take notes for the very first time. You want to be the student who has been taking rockstar notes since you were 13 so you can focus on the college-level content. (Mrs. Devin, I’m 14! Then you’re behind!! *joke*) And for my students who don’t want to go to college, I want you to be just as smart and as skilled as my students who do. Note-taking uses so many parts of your brain and using your brain is never a bad skill to have.
Fill–in–the–________
Great, we’ve established that we’re taking notes in the classroom and the students are coming along, mostly because they trust me but also because I’m in charge ;). Now let me introduce you to the bane of my crusade: the fill-in-the-blank notes. Now if you like fill-in-the-blank notes, I get it. I know why they exist and that actually might be a reason for why they are a bane in my eyes because I know they have a place: kids get the content that they need, lectures don’t slog on for so long, and you can hand the lesson off to a sub and know that students will get the content that they need. For students that struggle, this helps to make note-taking more approachable. BUUUUUT… My co-workers often use fill-in-the-blank notes for every lesson or I constantly find them in TPT sources that I buy. They are becoming a staple in my teacher-sphere.
But are they getting the same benefits as open notes? Do they process the information or do they search for that one word and then sit back till the next word shows up? When I teach a lesson with fill-in-the-blank notes, my kids don’t listen to me truly. They are hunting for words and they constantly interrupt if they miss one. It’s like I have to say the notes word for word for it to work and at that point, what is my purpose?
If you’ve ever bought a lesson from my TPT store that has a portion of the lesson as content lecture followed by an activity, you’ll see that I include two note styles, fill-in-the-blank notes and open notes. I don’t know exactly what the buyer wants so I include both. If you need a quick lesson for a sub… fill-in-the-blank notes are a life saver so lets include it. Also, my TPT lessons always have a bigger activity that might take up more time so the content deliver at the beginning might need to be quick so note-taking doesn’t need to be a priority and in that case, even in my class I might use fill-in-the-blank notes.
Strategies for better note taking
Here are a few things that work in my classroom:
| Jazz Hands Helps with: knowing what needs to be written |
| At the beginning of the year, I like to start with a policy in my class that I will use jazz hands in a lecture when I get to an important fact that they have to include in their notes. I will usually do this for 3 or lessons in the first month. Kids liked the goofiness of it and appreciated the guaranteed early on that they were doing it right. |
| Open Note Quiz Helps with: checking if they got the right notes |
| At the beginning of the year, I make this low stakes or even not graded so they can simply let the student check in with their own notes. Throughout the year, I make them graded and higher stakes as note-taking is a skill I want to assess throughout the course. Sometimes they will happen at the end of a lesson so that they can be quick to gage their effectiveness. |
| Different Note Styles (pictured below) Helps with: exploring different strategies and personal preferences |
| When we do take notes, I like to introduce them to different styles and different levels of support. It exposes them to different possibilities. But one reason I really enjoy changing it up is that it allows me to revisit the idea of notetaking and pull the skill forward as a topic for us to discuss, if only for a short blurb at the beginning of the lesson. |
| Grading Notes/ Note-taking check in Helps with: assessing growth and getting students to prioritize the skill |
| Every so often, I announce before they begin their notes that I will be picking up the notes at the end to grade on quality. For this, I like to give them a blank paper with a word bank for the key names and terms. This is a note style we have already used in class and offers the least amount of support so that I can see their note taking strategy best. This also helps to convey the message to the students that this is indeed a skill I care about and will assess. |
| Taking notes from a reading Helps with: practicing the skill and choosing a personal approach |
| If I find the textbook for that chapter helpful or if I found an article that I want them to read for homework, I will grade the notes that they took for homework. For this, they are instructed to keep their notes organized (When I taught middle school, I required a notebook for my class; high schoolers had a bit more freedom in how to organize). That meant that I wasn’t giving them note structure help and they were able to do as they pleased. If I was able to swing it, I would have the notes due on a day that they had a student led learning activity so that I had class time to walk around and look at their notes closely. This meant I could talk longer with students who didn’t take enough notes, took too many notes, or used very inefficient or disorganized note-taking strategies. At first, this was a completion grade but if I started to see that my advice wasn’t being heeded, there might be point reductions. (within reason!) |
| Note-Taking Boundaries Helps with: students who take too many notes or spend too much time on notes |
| Occasionally, I will require notes to be completed within certain parameters- only on one page or within a drawn box, hw can’t take more than 30 minutes for notes on a news article, no complete sentences except for an optional summary at end of notes. In my classes at least, I had some students that struggled with notes because they didn’t trust themselves and would write too much. For the most part, I let students take notes as they wished but the times when I created boundaries for them meant they were pushing themselves to be more succinct and to prioritize what is written, which is one of the main values of note-taking |
| Teacher Key Helps with: student self-advocacy and personal responsibility |
| If there are notes in class, I always make my key available to students after the lesson. They can ask to see them to check with their own under the condition that they show me that they attempted to take good notes in class. It is easy for me to see when a student isn’t paying attention during the lesson. If that is the case and they want to see my key after the lesson, I explain that I didn’t see any effort from them but they are welcome to look at notes by their peers. |
Different Note Styles
Other than teaching them to use Cornell Notes, I also utilized a number of class note set ups that I would alternate between:
***I only gave out a copy of my notes in my AP World History class because these lessons cover more content and in more detail than my other classes. Students were instructed to write in margins as I lectured following the notes. Margin notes typically clarified my notes, made connections to other regions or eras, or identified important themes.
Digital Notes?
Should students be able to take digital notes instead of pen on paper? There are pros and cons for both! I have all of my students attempt to write notes on pen and paper first. If a student comes into my class having already determined that they need digital resources because of their own academic learning plan set with the school, then of course, I will work with that student to be sure they have what they need.
My approach to using laptops and iPads in my class is to treat it as a privilege. My middle schoolers weren’t allowed to use them at all in my class because they weren’t ready for the responsibility. My 10th graders couldn’t use them for the first quarter because I wanted to reaffirm our hand written note skills first. In second quarter, they could use iPads and laptops only if they used a stylus. Third quarter, they could type their notes in the classroom but still needed to use a stylus for homework.
If I found that a student was misusing their device (copy-pasting a friends HW, opening other windows or apps during class, etc.) they would lose that privilege until I could trust them again. By 10th grade, students could understand this and were generally very well behaved with their devices.
If I had a student who was struggling in my class because of content retention, I will sometimes require them to go back to pen and paper for a period of time to see if that would help. Once, I even had a student move back to pen and paper after this because she actually realized that it worked for her personally to write on paper.
In my AP class, they were allowed devices from day one as that would be the case in most college classes but I still reserved the right to revoke individual access to devices if a student misused their device.
I hope this helps…
Again, this is all from my own experience over the last 9 years but I have had students return to thank me for teaching them to be good note-takers, some from AP classes they take the next year, some even from college classes. All of those words of appreciation are good to remember on Day 1 when I stand in front of a room of groaning students when I teach note-taking!
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