A note about notes
I've been teaching for three full years now, and it
feels like I’m starting to find my feet.
A least it feels like I have some head space to start and share some of the
ways I have been reflecting and (hopefully) improving my teaching practice.
After doing some
reading about Cognitive Load Theory last year (find a link to a presentation I
created here), one of the areas of teaching I wanted to improve was enabling
schema acquisition. In physics and
chemistry this has come more naturally to me (I have a maths and engineering
background); I have improved my worked examples and sharpened my explanations. However, I found this focus on schema acquisition
more difficult in non-mathematical science topics.
For non-mathematical
topics the resources available to me have been various PowerPoint presentations
where students take their own notes, but I was dissatisfied with this approach. Students were spending a significant amount
of time in class taking notes and I had no real way of examining their thinking
as this was happening. There was also a difference
in how quickly students were taking notes, with those who finished quickly getting
(even more) bored. Finally, students who
struggled to write clearly were being penalised when the time came to study and
revise from their notes.
After a tweeting a question last year I decided to trial giving students a copy of the notes
that they would usually write down, and replace that time with processing of
information provided. Below is an
example of a notes sheet from a year 8 lesson on Igneous Rocks. I have provided the previous PowerPoint
presentation, and the replacement notes sheet that I replaced them with.
 |
| Previous PowerPoint Notes |
 |
| Replacement notes sheet |
When I created
the notes sheet I have a number of aims, which were:
- One lesson of information onto two A5 pages (printed side by side on A4). This reduced printing, keeps me focused on the key information, and allows students to glue the notes page into their exercise books.
- Rewrite the PowerPoint notes in paragraph form because I want students to have to carefully read, and it allows the explanations in the notes to be clearer.
- Remove extraneous information from slides, so that students are only presented with the information that I want them to learn.
- Provide a number of questions which start with simple comprehension questions and build to questions which probe for understanding.
When using the
notes sheet in a lesson on Igneous Rocks I used the following lesson sequence:
- Quick-fire review questions from previous lesson
- Start with a short 2-3 minute video on igneous rocks
- Hand-out notes sheets and provide some explanations that are not in their notes, and discuss some images of igneous rocks (on PowerPoint), which would take about 10 minutes.
- Students work on questions in their exercise books, leaving space to glue the notes sheets later. During this time I am walking around the classroom checking student answers, asking for elaborations, and checking for understanding.
- Students spend some time in groups inspecting various igneous rock samples, filling in a table in their exercise books. Students are using what they have learned to determine if the rock sample is intrusive or extrusive. During this time I am moving between groups discussing the rocks with them.
- End of lesson.
It’s early
days, but what I am seeing is students engaging with the content in a way that
I wasn’t when presenting information by PowerPoint. I am also able to see what
students are thinking by their written answers to questions, and then provide
immediate feedback. In addition to this I’m
also seeing a reduction low-level disruption (from students who have finished copying the notes quickly).
I hope you find this blog post useful!
Hi Dan, great stuff, the more I read about them the more booklets/structured notes to fill in are the way to go (I'm on my secondary History PGCE now ahving taught at prep schools for the last 4 years. Have you checked out Jo Facer's 'Simplicity rules?' It's a fantastic book and recommends a move away from PP's. Or have you come across Greg Thornton or Ben Newark's blogs/twitter feeds about their thoughts on booklets? It is very much along the lines you are describing.
ReplyDeleteHi Freddie, thanks for your reply. I'll check out the book and blogs. For me the advantage of notes or booklets is that students are thinking harder than copying down notes. I'm still working out how to use booklets and notes when the complexity of content is high.
DeleteHi Dan, I have also designed a similar step by step handout to allow differentiation. I tend to add a little challenge question at the end of each copy die/complete the gap to allow others to catch up. After main independent work there is a quick fire quiz whole class discussion followed by GCSE exam style question (4 marks) with sentence starters for low ability
ReplyDeleteCopy down
DeleteThanks for your comment. These handouts are for year 8 level in Australia, but I am currently working out how to adapt this method for older students who are at the equivalent of UK GCSE. I like your challenge question idea, I think it will help break up some of the more complex content.
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