Fisher & Frey Ch. 7: Note-taking and Note making

Note-taking 101, NoteMAKING 102 :)

This chapter was pretty informative. I learned many ways to incorporate teaching students to take and make notes in the content areas.  There are many ways to take notes and the best ways depend on what the topic/content area is.  A few things stood out to me that I read and I would like to focus on those points.

First, Fisher and Frey stated (from a teacher) that "...taking notes is a skill that can be taught. Students ned to be shown to take good notes that they can use later" and (from Jim Burke 2002) that "taking notes is an essential skill, one that has many sub skills embedded within it.  Taking good notes not only trains students to pay attention but also what to pay attention to."  This is something that I was NEVER taught to do.  I did not learn to take notes until I got to college, and that was what I taught myself.  No one ever gave me skills to use when taking notes or making notes.  I am a person that has to write EVERYTHING down to remember it so learning from this chapter ways to take and make notes was beneficial to me.

The next point that stood out to me was on page 123 where the authors talk about how teachers need to make lectures "note-takable" for lack of a better word. Many times teachers introduce the topic and start lecturing. Even in college, they do not tell you what it is related to or how it will help you, just that it needs to be known.  I have always wondered how students are supposed to know or remember things when they make no connections.  I also wonder if teachers even realize that this make affect students comprehension of what they are teaching, not knowing what the importance of the lesson is. Maybe it is because we are in college that they expect us to know the information?

A strategy in English Notetaking that I absolutely loved was the dictoglos.  Upon reading the beginning of the strategy, I immediately thought, "this is not going to work."  But as I contented to read, it made more sense.  Captivate students in something that they may be interested in, teach them how to listen and take notes to that topic and that helps to transfer across other areas of content.  The only question that I pose is what happens when students do not see the relevance in what is essentially trying to be taught in this strategy? I know every strategy is not for everyone, but I think this is a strategy that would need to be summed up in the end for students to grasp the concept and to be taken to other areas of content to better their note taking/ note making.