After reading the responses from Dr. McCoy and Dr. Friedman, I feel much better about this whole research thing. I think I will stick to my original idea of looking into note-taking. I’m not sure if I will focus more on how teachers expect students to take notes, or more on how students in fact take notes (if they do!). Would a combination of the two be too broad of a topic? Now that I know I can use the collegiate realm as well as high schools, I have found a lot more articles on ERIC, which at first glance seem as if they will be helpful for the literature review portion. Taking Dr. Friedman’s suggestion, one way I have thought about doing research is to interview teachers before their lectures, on what type of note-taking they expect their students to participate in. Then, I would observe those lectures and possibly interview students, if necessary, to see what types of note-taking actually took place. Perhaps, to get a basis, I could survey a number of students to see which type of note-taking they prefer, such as outlines, the Cornell style, or just attempting to write down everything their teacher says. I am assuming since my content area is social studies, it would be most beneficial for me to narrow my observations and research to the type of note-taking taking place in high school social studies classes. I think this would be a valuable narrowing of my topic due mainly to the fact that students are forced to learn and recall information differently in all subjects, thus notes in a math class would be very different from notes in a social studies class.
5 comments:
Amber, you will want to stick to social studies classes. I think it will be interesting to focus on note-taking. I think you will find related studies that advocate one or another method for having students take notes. I wonder how teachers implement these methods and how successful they are with students. In math, we often do "guided notes" where the student is given a handout with a graphic organizer for taking notes. I think this method is used in your discipline as well. The whole realm of graphic organizers is a hot topic as it is a means to focus on varied learning styles. You might want to look into that.
Note-taking is generally a part of life once one gets to high school (if not before), so I think this is a fascinating topic.
You could definitely look deeply into instructor's attitudes and philosophies towards note-taking. Some seem to believe it's crucial that all their students do it; others believe it's distracting and rather that their students not do it in class time. Some teachers provide handouts so students don't have to note-take, or to simply guide note-taking.
I think your idea of perhaps finding out teachers' attitudes towards note-taking, combined with observations of students to see if their habits follow their instructor's note-taking philosophy is a good one. I suppose that your methodology would include first teacher interviews, then observations of their classes.
It might be important to ask in such interviews how much teachers communicate to their classes their note-taking philosophy. Some teachers may be very clear in the note-taking the expect of their students while others leave their students to make their own decisions. That could also be a point to consider.
This is a really interesting topic! Just an idea and I'm not really sure how well it would work, but maybe you could interview teachers after a lesson about the important points they think students should have written down, and then actually look at student's notes to see how many of these points they actually took sufficient note of? I feel like especially in Social Studies, there tends to be a lot of info and it can be hard for students to distinguish between what is important and what isn't. Good luck!
I think this is a great idea. I have experimented in my classroom a few times with different kinds of notes with differing results. From my own experience and observations, I think I have some information that might be helpful for you to consider (not necessairily research). First of all consider the course. Due to the nature of the EOC (I know that’s turning into a bad word), C&E as well as US History seem to require more notes. Furthermore, teachers greatly differ in their philosophies based on the level of class they are teaching. What I expect my AP students to do and what I expect my lower level students to do are different, mostly because they are taking notes for different reasons. Technology has also changed the note taking process. I’ve tried posting my notes on a BlackBoard site and let students download them and making PowerPoints available for download. And last but not least, another factor that we have to deal with is the paper crisis!! Its hard to give your students guided notes if you’re out of paper, ink or toner. I hope this information gives you some things to roll around in your brain! Feel free to ask me for more information.
Amber, I think this is a necesary area for more research. All the suddenk, kids get to high school and get into classes like world history and biology where taking notes is what comprises a majority of the class time (not saying that sedentary note-taking is exactly what we want the students to be doing). I don't remember having much training in the way of note-taking before I got to high school, so I was just thrown in there and had to figure it out on my own. I feel like I ended up ok, but I'm sure some students do not have equal success. That's what this note-taking reseach questions is all too important. To me, it seems like looking at the student perspective on note-taking and what he/she actually does and coupling that data with what the literature says is the best way to go about it would be beneficial and give you a great answer to your question.
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