More notes about notes

More notes about notes 

In my first blog I wrote about using note sheets for teaching year 8 earth science, rather than have students copy out notes for themselves.  

After this initial success, tried the Same method when teaching Newton's 2nd law of motion to a year 10 class, and it did not go as well as I had hoped. Students, for the most part, appreciated not having to copy out the notes. However, it was clear to me that students were more confused than when I last taught the same lesson last year using PowerPoint. So what happened? 

After speaking to some students after the lesson, their feedback was that they missed having time to process information and then having the information explained by the teacher. On my reflections of this I think that the note sheets (in the format I am using) work when element interactivity (complexity) is low, but don’t work in the same way when element interactivity is high.

If we contrast a year 8 lesson on igneous rocks with a year 10 lesson on Newton’s Second Law then I think you’ll see what I mean.

In a year 8 lesson on igneous rocks  students learn that igneous rocks form from the cooling of magma or lava, that there are two types of igneous rocks depending on where the rock formed (above or below the surface of the Earth), and that these two types can be identified by crystal size.  There is also very little prior knowledge needed to access this content.

In a year 10 lesson on Newton’s Second Law students learn that the acceleration of an object  is proportional to the size of the net force acting on that object, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object.  Students also need to solve questions using the F=ma equation and rearrange the equation to solve for mass and acceleration.  In addition to this students need at least the following prior knowledge: understand acceleration, understand Newton’s First Law, know what a force is, and know how proportionality and inverse proportionality work.

A lesson on Newton’s Second Law clearly has more parts (elements) that interact and support each other (interactivity) as students learn.  An advantage that using PowerPoint provided in this circumstance is that it requires information to be broken down into what can be presented on one slide.  Using PowerPoint I will usually have students copy down notes, and then I’ll spend some time explaining, discussing and questioning before moving onto the next slide.

By using a note sheet instead, I attempted to cram all of those discussions into one longer discussion at the start of the lesson. As students started to answer a set of (what I thought were) well crafted questions I was seeing repeated misunderstandings from lots of students.  I simply attempted to explain too much complex information in too short a time-frame.

So, for a lesson where element interactivity is high, the PowerPoint method was superior because there is a limit to how much information can go on one slide, and so allows for a stepped and structured approach.

In general I am keen to move away from having students spending valuable teaching time copying notes, but my current note sheet method is not up to the task of effectively teaching content with high element interactivity.  Over the next few weeks I’ll be rethinking how I approach such content in the classroom.

Back to the drawing board!

Dan (@dan_braith)