April 1, 2009 Summarizing and Note Taking

April 1, 2009 was my worst teaching experience, by far, to date. 

Problem: I lost control of the class. Students did not stay on task well. Students disregarded most of what I was trying to discuss with them. Students did not pay attention to the PowerPoint during lecture. When I got to the "interactive" part of class where we did a spin-off of "four corners," they were lost. They finally started to interact and listen to what I was talking about. However, they got "too into it" and I had to separate two particular students and end the activity. 

Reflection: One thing I have to always consider is the make-up of my classroom. Yes, teachers usually love to have a computer for every student--not me. After this experience I would prefer having a computer-less classroom and taking my students to a lab when the lesson requires computer applications. I say this because every day I walk into class, whether we are doing an interactive activity, lecture, or discussion, it is a fight to get students to keep their monitors off and stay on task. 

As a solution to this problem, I hand out a worksheet that students must fill out as I go through the lecture material. I collect this worksheet at the end of class and it counts as their daily grade. This way students must pay attention and stay on task if they want points for the day.

I also decided PowerPoint should not be used again in this class. Having a PowerPoint presentation binds me to the front of the class so I can click "next" for each slide while allowing students in the back of the class to surf the internet during class. 

I made the title of this entry "Summarizing and Note Taking" because after realizing how important note taking is to the success of my class, I decided to review what Marzano had to say about the subject. Marzano says this about note taking:

1) Verbatim note taking is, perhaps, the least effective way to take notes.

2) Notes should be considered a work in progress.

3) Notes should be used as study guides for tests.

4) The more notes that are taken, the better.

I'm sincerely utilizing #'s three and four on a fairly consistent basis. I do need to be more conscious of number one. I find myself, at times, telling the students what I would like them to write under each subject in the notes or handout I give them. I do, however, feel that majority of the students in my class do not know how to properly take notes. If I had these students for a full term, I would start off the year by going over proper note-taking techniques and the benefits of taking notes. 

The notes I give to students are a mixture of teacher-made notes and student-made notes. I give them the general idea of what I want them to know but they must take that and elaborate on the ideas, give personal experiences, and look up answers in text and other notes they've taken in the past. 

All-in-all, this day was a great experience and, as I know very well, not every day will be sunshine and daisies. I think after I made these adjustments to the make-up of our daily class routine, they will be more responsive and on task.