Thursday, June 5, 2008
Blog 1
Being a history major, I should be prepared to do any kind of research thrown at me. This research project, however, has me a bit intimidated. I am comfortable with the looking through the journals, databases and ERIC for research to help shape my paper. The thought of actually going into the field and compiling my own research, quantitative or qualitative, is a different matter all together. Nonetheless, I am adapting and learning to quickly get over my apprehension. I want to pick a topic that will prove to be helpful to me in the future. Therefore, I am tentatively looking at the different ways in which students are required to take notes. From personal experience, I have found I learn better when I have nothing in front of me but a blank notebook. I find the more I’m forced to write down, the more information “sticks” with me. However, there is always the dreaded teacher who covers too much material way too fast. In that case, I don’t retain as much information because I always feel as if I am trying to keep up. I want to compare this style of note-taking namely with the fill in the blank, outline type of note-taking. Again, in my personal experience, handing me an outline often gives me free range to “check-out” of class more often than if I am taking all of my own notes. I have begun to search online to find articles; however, I am running into a slight problem with finding studies on secondary education and not undergraduate students.
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4 comments:
Amber, relax, this will not be an impossible task. I like your topic idea about note taking. Make sure you check the ERIC thesaurus for what other terms are related. It is close to learning style, where some students process information in different ways. Or maybe even a comparison of different teaching styles. All would be interesting. And don't worry if some of the research is at a different level...it will still be relevant.
Definitely...I agree. There are different 'styles' of lecture, such as Cornell notes that could help populate your literature review, and in terms of going out into the field and collecting data, you don't have to look at just Cornell notes per se. You could interview teachers in terms of why they lecture, what they want their students to do during their lectures, and what they want to students to get out of their lectures, for example. You could then observe those lectures and see what actually occurs...
I like this topic. I've had similar experiences as you with teachers and while I really like having fill in the blank notes it does indeed usually end up with me just listening for the key words, then zoning in to pick up the information before zoning back out until the next key phrase comes along. Your topic sounds pretty focused as is, but if you are looking for any more added details, it might be interesting to see, of the teachers who just expect students to write free-hand notes, how many of them write words or phrases on the board, either before or during class. I've always liked that in class as not only does it help ensure that you pick up on the BIG topics, but its also nice to have names and such spelled out on the board. I tend to sometimes spend several valuable seconds debating how to spell a tricky word or name and end up missing the important point.
Amber,
After reading your blog, I found myself agreeing completely with your opinions about note-taking during our classes. I find it surprising that there wasn't much literature about note-taking in high schools, but that could be good for you in that you would actually have relatively innovative research. I think it would be interesting to see what teacher's expectations for their students in regards to note-taking are, and then compare it to the notes that their students are actually taking. All in all, I think you've chosen a very workable research question.
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