Getting It Down

In Chapter 7, Getting It Down: Making and Taking Notes Across the Curriculum, the introductory paragraph began by posing a very important question to their readers; Why teach student how to take notes? This truly set the tone for the chapter, which was full of note-taking activities that teachers could use in their classrooms, and the endless number of benefits for having students acquire note taking skills. The author continued on by defining the differences in note taking and note making. While note taking allows students to record important parts of a classroom lecture, note making is a process in which students use printed material to take notes. Both methods encourage students to organize information and pay attention. However, when students are asked to write as the teacher speaks, they are not given the opportunity to look back for missed information after the lecture is over. Whereas, when students use printed material to record information they have an ample amount of time to reread the text. I appreciate that students taking notes during a lecture are required to pay close attention and decipher what is most important or related to take good notes, but I am unimpressed that students are likely to miss information if not queued properly or informed of information in an organized and timely manner.

I personally have been the victim of teachers who spoke to fast, without allowing enough time for the class to write the information down in their notes. But in knowing this, I want students to be prepared when they encounter such seemingly impossible situations and know how to abbreviate, leave adequate space between their ideas, and be selective. While reading about the various ways used to teach students effective note taking practices, I found that Mr. Herrera’s strategy for teaching dictoglos seemed to be one of the most fun activities listed in the chapter. He chose to read rap lyrics to the class and test the students’ ability to record information quickly and accurately. Having the class engage in this type of activity allows them to practice taking notes in a motivational, yet beneficial manner, that will encourage them to block out background noise and focus on the most important phrases in the reading. It was mentioned repeatedly in the chapter that some teachers believe students should “just know” how to take notes effectively. This must be true, considering the fact that I cannot recall one formal note taking lesson in my entire school career.

To be completely honest, until our most recent class meeting, I gave little thought to my personal note taking practices. However, I found many of the note taking procedures listed in this section all too familiar. Skipping lines was one of the procedures that I find most difficult during lectures. Teachers will often skip around when lecturing, which causes notes that I am taking to become unorganized, which bugs me to the highest degree. I find it highly distracting when there are too many spaces between topics in my notes, yet it’s equally annoying when there is too much information squeezed into a tiny amount of space. For this reason alone, I vow to stay as organized as possible when lecturing, so that students may record information in a logical manner. In the concluding paragraph of the chapter, they stated that “teachers in secondary schools” should implement note taking lessons into their curriculum and give feedback to their students about their notes. I disagree with their suggestion, and firmly believe that note taking skills should be introduced to students while they are still in much earlier primary grades. There is no reason for teachers to not do this. After all, there are many reading strategies that can be used to teach note taking skills to students early on, such as the KWL and DRTA that can be easily used to show students the note taking process. I am looking forward to discussing these and many other ways to teach students valuable note taking skills.