The student of the Future:

The student of the Future: A novel way to teach note taking and organizational skills in the classroom

The first of a two part series on organizational and summarizing skills for elementary school age children
By Michelle Berkowitz, IEC

Understanding the frustration and inability of many students today not knowing how to organize and summarize teachers’ instruction during class, educators are beginning to think about how to help them. Note taking, summarizing and pre-test study skills are three crucial skills elementary school students need to master in order to succeed in both junior and high school. Teaching organizational and study skills side-by side with text analysis and reading comprehension in the early grades is one key to helping students achieve academic independence.

Most teachers in late elementary school grades require students to copy all of their notes from the board. Although teachers feel assured that their students are receiving all of their information this way they seldom guide their pupils on how to summarize the class lesson by themselves. Both the students and teachers are dependant on “board writing” which focuses students’ attention towards “making the grade” verses studying and learning for the sake of knowledge. Students mundanely copy the words in front of them rather than actively participate in the building of the lesson. Information taught in this manner remains disconnected and irrelevant to their lives.

A novel way to educate students to identify and summarize important content is training them to locate a place on their note book page (I am partial to create a special margin on the note book page itself) to “bullet” main ideas. At first, it would be wise for teachers to model this by giving their students the lessons’ “bullets” and explain how they themselves concluded them. To develop this skill further, teachers can then ask students for their ideas on what word or pair of words best captures the main ideas of the lesson. The goal for “bullet skill” development is to have students independently be able to either hear, read paragraphs and/or stories and to select bullets that remind them of what they just learned. In addition, this is also helpful for test preparation.

Developing “bulleting skills” can help students remember important information through the mode of visual association. Children can glance at bullets and test themselves on the more expanded versions of the information or self-test by covering up the bullets and trying to guess them by remembering where they are located on their page. Listing all of the bullets from several pages is a good way to review all of the main ideas included in the unit. Students who learn and develop this skill feel more in control and connected to their class work.

One of the biggest challenges teachers face is to teach students how to differentiate important and less significant ideas. Not all teachers tell their students to circle, box, or to print main topics larger than the rest of their notes, but the better teachers do. Other teachers allow their students to highlight their notes with different color markers and instruct them to leave spaces between different ideas. But most teachers do not and are left baffled when their students perform less than expected on tests and projects.

Students are waiting to be taught how to read a paragraph or story and to “select the important “stuff” and throw out the garbage.” Most teachers expect students to know how to do this by grade 9 but students are rarely taught how to do it. Book report, homework, research papers, and studying for tests and Bagruyot all require this skill. Teachers’ and parents’ frustration levels run high when they observe children faltering in their attempts to produce acceptable work. Students lose their patience and motivation which manifests in low performance because they lack this crucial skill. Educators must find the time and include concrete organizational and note taking skills in their curriculums.

Students need a separate place on their notebook page for vocabulary words and important phrases to remember. Teachers often write on the board or tell students difficult words and their definitions. But many students have difficulty finding them when reviewing for a test or when doing homework later on at home. The simple task of pre-organizing a consistent location for these types of words would make these tasks simpler and take less time.

It would be helpful for kids to leave each lesson with a short catch-phrase (what I like to call the lesson’s “bumper sticker”) summarizing the day’s lesson. Many teachers are reluctant to give this ‘treasure” away in fear of destroying the creative building of their lesson. All too often though, students leave the class with a weak understanding, if any, of what the day’s message was and how it was different from yesterday’s message. Teachers can facilitate student participation in summarizing the lesson in the last few moments of the class. They could ask students to write what they think the most important part was or they could re-frame what several students have to offer as the day’s main message. Highlighting the lesson’s “bumper sticker” cues children in on main ideas and can either introduce to them a connection with the lesson yet to come or close the present unit in a clear and definitive way.

Numbering a notebook page seems so simple but most students do not realize how important an organizational skill this is to them. Many students, parents, and teachers complain about the work sheets and pages that get torn free and lost from binders and notebooks. Often when children are sick or miss school making up notes becomes too difficult because students do not know how to organize enough space on their page for filling in. Students who properly date and number their pages have a simpler time locating notes when doing homework, studying for tests, and filling in missed work.

Organizational and note taking skills development engages both student and teacher in a combined effort towards a more independent and successful student. Teachers who consider how students learn and organize the information they give over can feel the freedom to invite their students to take more active roles in lesson development. Both teachers and students stand to reap the many benefits of this mode of teaching and learning process by facilitating independent learning and students active participation in and out of the classroom.