Do your college students lose their notes?
Do they only put them randomly into their backpack?
Are they continuously lacking pages or vital sections of notes?
Mine do, on a regular basis! It’s loopy to ask a scholar to take out their notes on mitosis and see them pull out 3 historical past pages, 1 geography be aware, and {a partially} completed English paper earlier than discovering the one they want, crumpled inside their backpack. Nonetheless, it does clarify their incapacity to review successfully.
Right here’s what I do to fight this and it’s actually fast.
Each Tuesday, college students should submit a abstract of the notes we did the week earlier than. These notes should be in their very own writing (no computer systems to keep away from copy and pasting), in jot level, of their OWN phrases, and embody footage, diagrams, calculations, and textual content. I inform them that they need to be capable to throw away their notebooks and use these to review for his or her checks alone.
I briefly mark the summaries. This takes me about 10-15 seconds per scholar and I normally mark it /2 or /3. I strive my finest to all the time hand them again the subsequent day. At first of the 12 months, I spend a bit extra time to assist prepare them to create their summaries appropriately.
I exploit PowerPoint as my notes so I name these PowerPoint Summaries (PPS) and it’s a staple in my classroom.
By week 3, your college students get used to it and can carry them up with out you asking. In the event that they aren’t submitted on time, I nonetheless will settle for them at ANY TIME however for just one/2 the marks they might have in any other case obtained. Will they cheat and hand in another person’s? Sure. However the level is the method for the reason that act of writing out the notes by hand will assist them be taught. Nonetheless, most will do the work themselves. Plus, they’ll have the notes going ahead which is the opposite level of the exercise.
After leaving my class I’ve many college students come again to inform me that they’ve continued with this course of (or one thing very comparable) of their different lessons as a result of it’s such an efficient strategy to keep organized and research.
Give it a go and let me know.
Devon