1. Jessica Truckey EDSC 310

2.  Process- During class lectures, taking notes helps students sort through new information.  Product- Notes act as a study guide and reinforcement material after the lecture.

3.  Though ELN students often struggle with note-taking at first, studies indicate that when properly trained to take notes, ELN students benefit immensely from the process.

4.  Teach students how to abbreviate.  Shorten words ◦ Examples: In a high school government class, students may use Cong. for Congress, Jud. for the Judicial system, and Exec. for the Executive branch.  Use a letter (or letters) to represent a repeated word ◦ Example: In a lecture on the creation of the United States constitution, A.O.C. can represent the Articles of Confederation. To keep track of their abbreviations, students may create a key in the corner of their paper.

5.  Texting! ◦ Many teenagers text, and are therefore constantly exposed to abbreviations (lol, omg, bff, etc). Encourage students to transfer those skills into the classroom, and perhaps create a similar set of abbreviations to be used constantly in note taking.  Benefits of abbreviating ◦ “Frustration is lowered because the abbreviation strategies help students write more quickly.” ◦ “Memory is enhanced because students have a reliable document for study purposes.” [Taken from Inclusion Strategies for Secondary Classrooms: Keys for Struggling Learners (Kindle Locations 1226-1227). Kindle Edition. ]

7.  Students, especially those with ELN, often find it difficult to discern key information from information of mere ‘personal interest.’  Benefits ◦ Discrimination is enhanced when students know what to include and what to exclude in their notes ◦ Memory is enhanced ◦ Frustration is decreased when students can keep up with the lecture ◦ Persistence is improved when students can finish their notes ◦ Motivation is increased when students see increases in their exam grades  [Taken from Inclusion Strategies for Secondary Classrooms: Keys for Struggling Learners (Kindle Locations 1241-1243). Kindle Edition. ]

8.  Graphic organizers are a great tool to guide students in their note-taking. Students who use graphic organizers often out-perform their peers who do not use them.  Especially for students with learning disabilities, graphic organizers can add a visual element to note taking that eases the process of note taking.

9.  Confusion is eliminated when students have a meaningful structure for understanding the relationships among concepts  Memory is enhanced when students have a correct and complete GO to study  Organization of concepts is ensured because the teacher has developed the GO  Frustration is reduced because students can complete a meaningful GO  Motivation is enhanced because students experience success ◦ [Taken from Inclusion Strategies for Secondary Classrooms: Keys for Struggling Learners (Kindle Locations 1260-1261). Kindle Edition. ]

11.  Guided notes provide an outline of the lecture for students to fill out as they follow along.  Check out this video of a bilingual instructor explaining how he uses, and how all educators can use, guided notes in the classroom: ◦ http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/ guided-notes http://www.theteachertoolkit.com/index.php/tool/ guided-notes

12.  Strategic notes allow students the opportunity to draw upon prior knowledge to connect with new information.  Like guided notes, strategic notes also look like an outline. The beginning asks the student to reflect on what they know about the topic, and the ‘middle’ section asks students to outline the main points of the lecture, and the last section provides a space for students to summarize their notes.

14.  Brick and Mortar notes, essentially, are in a Question- Answer format, in which the instructor provides the question, and the student fills in the answer during the lecture What limited the federal government in the Articles of Conferderation? ____________________ How were those limits addressed in the Constitution? ____________________