Note Taking and Note Making: Chapter 7

This proved to be an interesting chapter to me, with two very different sides of the matter of note taking: the side of the student, and the side of the teacher. The author makes it clear that it is important for instructors to organize their information in a way that helps students pay attention to the important details. I know that as a student, it has frustrated me in the past when an instructor spent a great deal of time on one subject, only to find out that the particular topic did not really matter in the future. This always seems to happen to me after taking meticulous note of course!  Therefore, it is important as an educator to focus the lesson around the important details without getting caught up in a bunch of fluff that only drags the lesson on. I wish that someone had taught me to take notes when I was a student. However, being home-schooled, my mother was basically my personal tutor until college, therefore taking notes was unnecessary until then. After reading this chapter, I realize how taking notes can help students in many different ways. One major benefit to note taking is that it helps with organizational skills. The next really intrigued me by explaining the connection between struggling readers and organizational skills. When students are taught note taking, their organizational skills improve. They learn to attend to information that they hear, because they must hear it in order to write it down. When they accomplish this, they have notes that will help them retrieve the information that they are learning. This in turn will help them become better readers. Note taking may prove to be a support for struggling readers in my future classroom! The organization skill of note taking is useful across content areas of course. While note taking is common in social studies and English, it can also be an important organizational and processing tool in math and science. I love the DNA strategy of note taking that is mentioned in the social studies section. This strategy really seems to help the students make note taking into a process. It really requires them to think about why they need to organize their information and how they will organize it. Note taking also gives students a chance to process the information and make it their own. It is a safe way to practice writing without worrying about a grade. It will also help with handwriting! Note making is a different skill that is also an important process. Note making differs from note taking in the fact that students can look back on a text book for information when note making. This process is also important for students to learn how to do. Note making requires the students to determine the important facts in the text, as well as choose a way that they believe the notes should be organized. I am one of those people who takes the highlighter and highlights the entire page when given the challenge to mark in a book. This is a very ineffective strategy for me, although an important one. I intend to use these note taking and making strategies in this book to teach not only my students to organize information, but myself as well!