Summarizing+&+Note+Taking

Read and Reflect

After reading this section on summarizing, I do agree that it jells with some things I already knew and practiced myself when I was the student but there were also some new knowledge to be learned. I did not realize there were so many different strategies for summarizing new material. The rule based summarizing strategy was somewhat familiar, it was something I did unconsciously but not something I shared with my students to do on their own. I guess that is due to the fact that I teach math and mainly focus on learning the algorithms so there is not much summarizing done in class, the texts are pretty straightforward. One thing I may change in my class as far as summarizing may be to put more of the responsibility on the students once these strategies are taught to them.

After one of our earlier modules I began having my students pick out key concepts and key terms when beginning a new module online. I had hoped that this would increase their understanding of the lessons if they were to do this exercise. Many had trouble completing this assignment and finding the key concepts/terms on their own. I believe if I begin to teach them to summarize a lesson via the rule based strategy or the topic restriction illustration strategy. The T-R-I might be a better choice, using this strategy I can present students with guiding questions to help them summarize the material which in turn will help them to recognize the key concepts/terms.

Note taking in my class usually involved me writing on board and directing students what to write in their notes. Recently, I have both given them notes that I created on new topics and also have tried giving students sticky notes or foldables, where on top of the sticky note/foldable they write the main idea or vocabulary word and underneath is the definition or algorithm. For example, one sticky note may have the word "Commutative Property" and underneath in their notebook would be the definition and examples. When studying for a test or when taking a quiz, students may look through their notebooks and the topic they are searching is easily visible using the foldables.

Students also have made graphic organizers and concept webs this year to organize material. The finished products are graded and placed in their binders as notes for references and review.

After discussion (and reviewing the discussion board) I have more ideas of how to incorporate nonlinguistic representation into a math lesson. I found it difficult because mainly we teach algorithms and the process, but I have new ideas to to incorporate into my lessons. Non-linguistic does not necesssarily have to be pictorial, music, songs, slides can be used in math.

Apply and Reflect

The students will be studying one step equations when we return from the holiday break. In this voice thread the goal was the summarize the material for them so that when we move onto multistep equations they will have this foundation to build upon and refer to if necessary. Students will also be directed to leave any comments they may have on the algorithms.

This was an interesting site and I hope to use it as a way for students to visually see the problems and summarize the steps, this may help me to see where additional teaching may be needed.

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