ORGANIZED NOTE-TAKING

 By: Dr. Armãndo R. Tolliver | EDUCATOR | April 6, 2017

Learning is a messy process, but as we all know, information is most useful when it is organized. Organizing content provides schema or scaffolded structures to aid the brain in understanding the content. The common denominator for all learning, however, is its active nature. This article will discuss guided Cornell notes, a strategy for note-taking I have used to help record information to be learned, revisit the information by working with the ideas, developing understanding, plus making sense of the information, before synthesizing and applying the information into a product.

            Lecture in the classroom is continuous, day in and day out, class after class, students are constantly taking in information and updating their knowledge base. Many students take notes to help them look back at what was presented in lectures and build on this information for subsequent gains in recall and comprehension. However, I have found that many students often have difficulties taking notes during lectures and studying. The problem generally presents itself as issues writing fast enough to keep up with the pace of the lecture, paying attention during the lecture, making sense out of notes after class, legibility, and deciding what is important to record during the lecture. Many of these issues often result in notes that are partial or have incomplete lecture points. As a result, I use guided Cornell notes to address these issues, as they provide a note-taking style that is quick, clear, and structured.

            Setting up Cornell notes is a simple process. The power of this strategy comes in interacting with the notes multiple times. When I initially presented this strategy of note taking to students, I distributed the Cornell Note Format, the Cornell Note Template, and a Cornell Notes Student Sample before discussing each section of the format with students. We addressed the purpose and the importance of each section, beginning with where to write the heading, main ideas, topic, keywords, and essential question. We also spent a little time highlighting the importance of the essential question and how it guides the discussion summary of the notes. It was equally important to review the types of information that go in the right column versus the left column that is used to write questions that reflect different levels of thinking. Additionally, we took note of where the summaries are written and discussed the value of writing concise summaries of readings and classroom instruction. Seeing a visual as I explained the process helped make the descriptions and explanations clear. I stressed to students the importance of taking notes in understanding and retaining content. We looked at the curve for forgetting to reiterate the point that they must use the notes as a tool, not simply take notes. Read more about this in a previous article Information Retention and Practice.

            I then used the next 15 minutes to model how to correctly take notes using the template for this note taking strategy. The first 10 minutes were spent taking notes from whole-group instruction. The next 2 minutes were spent processing the segment of notes by working with a partner to share and refine notes, plus create left column questions. The final 3 minutes were spent independently summarizing the information for the chunk of notes. Below is a student sample.

            We continued to repeat this process until all information for this lesson was presented. After all of the information was provided to the students, we opened the floor to resolve unanswered questions and clarify information. Students were also given an opportunity to provide feedback on this method process. One student stated, “I had a hard time writing fast enough, and I did not know what questions to write at first.” Another student stated, “I need help writing the final summary.”

Based on these comments, I found a couple ways to differentiate this strategy. One way is to provide students guided-lecture notes with a word bank at the tope of the page for the students to reference to fill in blanks during the class. Two, guide students as they write questions in the left column by providing students with Costa’s Levels of Thinking. Finally, it might be wise to provide students with sentence frames to use in writing the summary. Also, I will probably use the accountability partners or students already proficient with Cornell note-taking to be teachers in small groups or models to demonstrate the areas of concern presented by the students. We continued doing Cornell Notes and here is what a student was able to do later in the school year (student sample here).

Suggested Citation
Tolliver, A. R. (2017). Organized Note-Taking. [Education Project Online]. Retrieved online at http://www.educationprojectonline.com/2017/04/organized-note-taking.html.

References

Boyle, J. R. (2010). Note-taking skills of middle school students with and without learning disabilities. Journal Of Learning Disabilities, 43(6), 530-540. doi:10.1177/0022219410371679

Boyle, J. R. (2013). Strategic note- taking for inclusive middle school science classrooms. Remedial And Special Education, 34(2), 78-90. doi:10.1177/0741932511410862

Forchelli, G. A. (2014). Differences in the note-taking skills of students with high achievement, average achievement, and learning disabilities. Learning & Individual Differences, 359-14.

Donohoo, J. (2010). Learning How to Learn: Cornell Notes as an Example. Journal Of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(3), 224-227.