Strategic
Note-taking

notetaking

Note taking can be done in numerous ways and can be completed by all students, by one or more students with the intent of sharing, or they can be completed by the teacher. A list of note taking strategies could include:



Graphic Organizers
The students can use the graphic organizer to take notes. The notes can be used as discussion starters in the content area class or as study guides for an upcoming test or quiz.

Social Studies Example

Support site showing various types of graphic organizers
Examples of Graphic organizers



Teacher Notes or Note Cards

Students can benefit from teacher notes to help support lecture or other content delivery methods. A strong web based system for archiving notes will benefit all students and provide organization to the class material.

Physics Example

Chemistry Example (note cards)



Guided Notes
Guided notes are most frequently teacher-prepared notes that map or outline lecture content. This type of note will leave "blank" spaces for key concepts, critical facts, definitions, etc. Throughout the lecture, or other content delivery method, students fill in the spaces with key ideas, etc… Guided notes can help students follow a lecture, identify key points, 
and develop a stronger foundation of content to study and to apply.

Support site with information on developing guided notes



Examples of Guided Notes:
Note Sample #1 Note Sample #2 Note Sample #3


PowerPoint Notes
You can take your Power Point presentations and convert them to an outline form for easier student access. This would also allow you to take a PowerPoint presentation and create guided notes for the class.

Support Site – Converting PowerPoint to Word Outline Form



Student Note Sharing
Have different students take notes for the class and then share them electronically on your website. You might also consider using carbonless notebook paper so students can share notes more easily.

Source for Carbonless Notebooks



Audio Recordings or Study Casts
You might consider creating study casts, or lecture notes that are available to students online. This type of note taking would benefit all students, but especially those that frequently struggle with reading and comprehending text.

Examples of Study Casts



Video Notes
With the ability to stream video via Teacher Tube, you might consider creating video notes. These can be reproductions of a class lecture, or they can be video casts that are created to enhance classroom content.

Example of Video Notes



Structured Notes
Research indicates that over 50 percent of content is lost within minutes of reading or hearing a passage. Structured note-taking is an excellent tool for helping students select, organize, and remember important points from their reading. Students use visual organizers to make notes of key points immediately after completing a passage. This visual framework helps students determine which details are noteworthy.

Strategy support for structured notes (example included):