I believe instructional strategies today have enhanced our cognitive learning theory for students today of the 21st century. With the technology we have today students are not able to prepare themselves for assessments much easier that we were growing up. By teaching students how to effectively take notes, summarize, and use graphic organizers to the best of their ability, we are providing our students with a rich learning environment, which includes more than one means of transport supporting Paivios idea of duel coding (laureate 2010). With our students being able to use these key contributors to learning they are now able to get a better grasp of the lessons we are trying to teach them.
Students have a tough time with note taking. I know when I was a student I wondered what information I was supposed to write down and which would be the most meaningful to help me pass the test. When I was in school, I didn’t really think about actually learning the material especially if I was not interested in the specific topic. I was just concerned with pretty much memorizing what I had to in order to get a good grade on my test and pass the class. I think that is a problem with some of our students today. With understanding our cognitive learning theory with the help of technology, our students today can now get the most beneficial resources that will not only help them know the material for the tests but learn and understand the concepts being taught. The most important thing is our students take the best strategy and connect to their own individual learning and be able to comprehend the material so it makes them the most successful.
References:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2010). Program five. Cognitive learning theory (Webcast). Bridging learning theory, instruction and technology. Baltimore, MD: Author.
I agree that most students do not understand how to correctly take notes in class. I teach high school math. We have note-taking guides that I use. I sometimes hand out teacher directed notes. The only problem is that most students only fill in the blanks and do not actually read the notes. It could help to have students create maps using their notes. This might help them put the concepts together and understand how topics relate to each other. I hope to have students start making maps to understand when to use math concepts correctly. It can help that the maps can then be converted to outlines. Also, Word can summarize notes. This would be great way to create study guides for students.
ReplyDeleteWhen I took notes in school, my main concern was getting everything I needed written down before the teacher moved the transparency up. I don't think I even reread the notes after writing them because their content didn't have much meaning to me. I think that with graphic organizers and guiding questions, or even just telling students what they are going to be learning helps them in processing the information. Concept maps help to make things visual because not all students learn well with text, some learn better with graphics or pictures.
ReplyDeleteI believe note taking is a challenge for most students. Some students miss out on the point of a lesson because they are so wrapped up in writing down every word the teacher says, while other don't care enough about what they are learning to pick up a pencil and start taking notes. In either case, it is frustrating from a teacher's standpoint. I do like to use teacher supplied notes that give a basic outline of a lesson or unit, especially with my lower level students. For the first group of students I mentioned who spend too much time writing information down, this gives them a head start so all they need to do is fill in some of the information, and then they can focus more on what is happening in class. For the second group of student who do not take notes this often motivates them to take some notes because they do not need to put forth such a great effort. Also, these notes model what I think good notes should look like, which is important for all students to see.
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