Guided Notes 63

Guided notes versus standard note taking by the students: The effects on behavior and achievement.

Christopher A. Hogsten

ED 646

Ronald G. Helms, Ph.D., Professor

ED 771 (Chapter Two and References)

Tracy Rusch, Ph. D.

Wright State University

Abstract

The purpose of my study was to investigate the effects of guided notes (versus standard note taking by the students) on classroom behavior and academic performance. The data collection methods that I found useful in my study included: observation, interviews, and recording quiz and test scores. The data that I collected was analyzed using the deductive and inductive codes.

My findings demonstrate that there was far more student involvement when the students were given guided notes, before beginning a lesson, by the teacher in both the high school and middle school classrooms. It also shows that the students did better understanding the material and it showed on their tests and quizzes. Finally, I found the effects on their classroom participation of the students rose above expectations because the students could listen better to the explanations by the teacher and their classmates because they were not forced to frantically write line after line in order to keep up with the rest of the class.

Guided notes appear to be a promising strategy for improving the academic performance of students in any type of classroom setting. The fact that discussion and lecture continue to be the number one source of teaching in our school systems today lends creditability to the need for systematic note taking strategies, such as guided notes. With the use of computers to help plan and assist in instruction, teachers are easily able to produce quality guided notes at the same time that they are preparing for a certain lesson in math, history, science, or a host of other subject areas.

Table of Contents

Title Page 1

Abstract 2

Chapter One 5

Literature Background of the Study 5

Purpose of the Study 7

Problem Statement 7

Research Questions 8

Definitions of Terms 8

Pilot Study 9

Data Collection Methods 11

Data Analysis Methods 11

Significance of the Study 12

Limitations of the Study 13

Summary 13

Chapter Two 14

Literature Background of Study 14

Methods in Note Taking 14

Different types of Note Taking Techniques 16

Guided Notes 18

Relevance of Study 20

Summary 20

Chapter Three 21

Research Setting 21

My First High School 25

My First High School Classroom 26

My First High School Students 27

My First High School Cooperating Teacher 27

My Second High School 27

My Second High School Classroom 28

My Second High School Students 29

My Second High School Cooperating Teacher 29

My Middle School 30

My Middle School Classroom 30

My Middle School Students 31

My Middle School Cooperating Teacher 32

Author 32

Research Ethics 33

Data Collection Methods 33

Data Analysis Methods and Codes 34

Summary 36

Chapter Four 37

Answers to Baseline Research Question A 37

What are the students’ doing during this time? 37

What are the grades of the student’s who do not take notes in class? 37

Answers to Baseline Research Question B 43

Relevance of the Findings to the Literature 45

Summary 46

Chapter Five 47

Summary of the Study 47

Recommendations 48

My Plan of Action 49

Summary 49

References 50

Appendix A (Pilot Study) 52

Appendix B (Map of First High School Setting) 59

Appendix C (Map of Second High School Setting) 60

Appendix D (Map of Middle School Setting) 61

Appendix E Survey 62

CHAPTER ONE

In this chapter, I will summarize the literature background of my study, the problems that my study addresses, my research questions, and my data collection and analysis methods. I will close this chapter with the discussion of the limitations and significance of my study.

Literature Background of the Study

My literature review centers on the importance of note taking. Three steps to becoming an effective note taker includes: preparing ahead for lecture whenever possible, develop a strategy for taking notes, and editing.

Preparing Ahead for the Lecture Whenever Possible

I begin by the first step in note taking. According to Ellis (1997) the first step in ensuring that you take good note is to prepare yourself before class so that you can listen effectively during class. Listening is always easier when the concept a speaker is discussing is familiar. Therefore, complete your reading assignments before class. Doing homework on time and reviewing the previous notes makes your listening and note taking easier. Pegg (1995) specifically states to read the material and previous class notes before class. Make notations about material or concepts that you do not understand. Look up vocabulary words that are unfamiliar to you.

Developing a Strategy for Taking Notes

The second step is actual note taking. To begin the second step, you must set up your notes from the start so that they will serve you well for later study. According to Ellis (1997) you want to begin by drawing a line down your paper approximately two inches from the left edge. Plan to use the left column to develop cues for study, but save this activity for after class. During class, take notes only in the larger column on the right-hand side. Once you have organized your notes in this fashion and the lecture begins, your goal is to follow and to record the speaker’s stream of ideas as best as you can. To accomplish this, you must hear and record complete ideas. The Academic Skill Center of Dartmouth College (2001) suggests that each student should develop his or her own method of taking notes, but most students find the following suggestions helpful:

  1. Make your notes brief.

1.  Never use sentences where you can use a phrase. Never use a phrase where you can use a word.

2.  Use abbreviations and symbols, but be consistent.

  1. Put most notes in your own words. However, the following should be noted exactly.
  2. Formulas
  3. Definitions
  4. Specific facts
  5. Use an outline form and/or a numbering system. Indentation helps you distinguish major and minor points.
  6. If you miss a statement, write key words, skip a few spaces, and get the information later.
  7. Don’t try to use every space on the page. Leave room for coordinating your notes with the text after the lecture. (You may want to list key terms in the margin or make a summary of the contents of the page.)
  8. Date your notes. Perhaps even number the pages.

Editing

According to Pauk (1997) the third step to effective note taking is making sure that your notes are useful to you for study. Capturing the flow of a speaker’s ideas is not an easy task, and even the best notes can usually benefit from some revision once you have had a chance to think about the lecture and review what you have wrote down. This process of reviewing and making changes in your notes to ensure they are complete and understanding is called editing. Specifically Treuer (2002)states that academic skills centers and other authorities on effective study skills consider reviewing and editing class notes to be the most important part of note taking and essential to increasing the student’s learning capacity.

Purpose of the Study

I choose to study the effects of note taking due to the fact that every teacher will come across students that will not take notes in every class that you teach. So, by figuring out some reasons that students choose not to take notes during class will help me find ways to motivate them.

Problem Statement

The topic that my pilot study will focus on is note taking. This is a major problem in the classes that I have observed. This problem seemed to be the most trouble in my first and second period classes. Some of the students’ grades were very low and their homework scores were even lower. Many of the students’ came up to me saying that the reason that they did not have their homework is because they didn’t understand the material. Many of the students who said this to me were also the same students who never seemed to be taking notes or they only seemed to write a few things down on paper. I felt that this could be changed by getting the students to be more involved in the note taking process. So, I set out to find out why these students felt that it was not necessary to take notes in class and then I tried some different strategies that I had thought of to influence them and to help them succeed in not only their math class but all of their classes.

Research Questions

  1. How many students are taking notes?
  2. What are the grades of the students who are note taking notes?
  3. Why do they feel that it is note necessary to take notes during class?
  4. How often do these students take notes?
  5. If they are taking notes, how detailed are they?
  6. When they are not taking notes, what are these students doing?

Research Questions to gather Explanatory Data

  1. How can note taking improve these students’ grades?
  2. What are the effects of my changes in their note taking process on increasing and promoting students to take notes?

Definition of Terms

When I am using the word note taking I am looking for students to be writing down the vast majority of notes the teacher is writing on the board. . I am not necessarily looking for them to write down every example but I am looking to see if the students are writing down the definitions, proofs, postulates, and at least most of the examples.

In the winter and spring quarters I would like to look at the effect my changes have on their homework and quiz grades on increasing and promoting students to take notes. The changes I plan on implementing are, letting the students use their notes on quizzes and every once in awhile I will take a grade for their notes instead of their homework.

Pilot Study

I choose to study the effects of note taking due to the fact that every teacher will come across students that will not take notes in every class that you teach. So, by figuring out some reasons that students choose not to take notes during class will help me find ways to motivate them. This is a major problem in the classes that I have observed. This problem seemed to be the most trouble in my first and second period classes. Some of the students’ grades were very low and their homework scores were even lower. Many of the students’ came up to me saying that the reason that they did not have their homework is because they didn’t understand the material. Many of the students who said this to me were also the same students who never seemed to be taking notes or they only seemed to write a few things down on paper. I felt that this could be changed by getting the students to be more involved in the note taking process. So, I set out to find out why these students felt that it was not necessary to take notes in class and then I tried some different strategies that I had thought of to influence them and to help them succeed in not only their math class but all of their classes. But, before I could help these students I had to find out the reasons these students were not motivated to take notes. To do this I looked for the following aspects during my observations:

·  How many students are taking notes?

·  What are the grades of the students who are note taking notes?

·  Why do they feel that it is note necessary to take notes during class?

·  How often do these students take notes?

·  If they are taking notes, how detailed are they?

·  When they are not taking notes, what are these students doing?

Then to gather explanatory data I looked at the following:

·  How can detailed note taking improve these students’ grades?

·  What are the effects of my changes in their note taking process on increasing and promoting students to take notes?

To collect my data I observed, surveyed/questioned the students, and I interviewed them. Next, I had to analyze all of the data that I have collected. To analyze this data, I took the data from the five days I had that I recorded and sorted them by what the students were doing in class when they were supposed to be taking notes. After recording all the data that I collected, I looked to see how many of these students tended to do the same thing everyday. For example, did one student seem to sleep everyday in class? After examining these pieces of data I went back to the grade book to see what grades of the students who seemed never to take notes were.

In conclusion, after analyzing my research questions here is what I found:

  1. Students seemed to repeat their actions almost everyday.
  2. Students who took detailed notes in class did a minimum of one full grade letter better than the students who did not take notes at all.

So, by my observation and data collection I was able to conclude that the students who take detailed notes in class will do better than that of the students who do not take notes.

Data Collection Methods

For my action research project, I continued using the same collection methods that were useful in my pilot study: observation, interviews, and recording homework, quiz, and test scores. The first method I used to collect data was observations. I passively observed the students while they were taking notes. I chose this mode of observation because I wanted to minimize my own interference. By simply recording the number of students who were doing off-task things, I hoped to observe the effects that guided note taking. As I observed any students’ off –task behavior, I recorded the name of the student and the type of off-task behavior in my notebook.