100% agree! As a school based SLP, I also agree that students with learning challenges should be expected to take notes as best they can as well. We are too quick to allow students to use technology such as speech-to-text or audio versions of what ever they are reading because of a learning disability because there is a displacement effect that occurs when they do not practice important skill on their own! Have you seen this new study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096525000013?via%3Dihub
The teachers' colleges seem to cultivate teachers who are not content specialists. Here in Seattle, they also serve to develop social justice activism over scholarship. I once had to have a stand-in at my son's high school in 2008 after I found out his math teacher couldn't do math or teach math, so instead put on videos with unrelated content during class.
Thank you so much for taking time to write this! I was a k-12 student outside USA and this is exactly how our classes were structured. We would start taking notes in 5th grade ( beginning of middle school) all the way through College! Your approach is much more supportive since our teachers have never explicitly explained us how to take the notes nor did they provide their own after the lecture!
Do you have a grade attached to the notes, e.g notebook checks? What assignments do you typically grade in week of one of your classes? I have been playing around this idea in my head and I’m trying best to figure out how to execute it - my school’s disciple policy or lack thereof has led most of the staff to conclude the only motivation we can use to get students to do work is through a grade.
Great idea, when I got to 6th grade, I was told to take notes. Nobody instructed me how to take notes in any way, shape or form, they just said, "take notes." I was an indifferent student at best, so it literally never occurred to me to ask how to take notes. So I tried to take notes, but that were completely useless to me, so I just read the textbook and tuned the teacher out.
I am going to try this with my homeschooled kids. We have just started using notebooks in second and fourth grade. I do the writing for the younger one. If I start modeling Cornell note taking now they should be way ahead of where I was when starting higher ed.
I'd think since your class is mostly a practicum -- if I'm wrong, correct me -- it would be unlikely, unless you were teaching students something new that you'd need them to study and write about or take an objective test on.
You're practice,, my guess, would tend toward the kinesthetic, so your students practice would be kinesthetic. The test is a performance. And almost nobody. (except maybe yearbook) has more of a public performance than your students.
If you were teaching performance though, and there were a lot of classroom minutes, I would still think the Cornell Notes process would benefit your students so they could go to their notes during independent practice.
I don’t know. I’ve taught grammar, history, literature, math (temporarily), and art history. Even arts students benefit from notetaking in the early stages of development, especially if they’re in the early stages of learning techniques developed in a particular time period by particular artists or groups of artists.
Except in lab classes, notes are helpful not just for long-term retention, but as a behavioral control.
Maybe your site is more under control than all of mine were, but the difference between a class where everyone is expected to take notes and where the kids just “listen” and sometimes practice a skill when the teacher isn’t talking at them is night and day in terms of behavior, competence, and joy.
I think I can concur with your concept just not the universal aspect. Semantics, I agree. But when you start saying “except in lab classes” and the like I have flashbacks to many many meetings as a teacher “this doesn’t apply to me, how will I show compliance or defiance”
In general, I'm writing for schools that are an absolute unmitigated mess and teachers who are adrift, unable to teach because of garbage policy.
If we go through all the classes offered in most high schools, notes should apply everywhere, except music, which has LEGITIMATE performance-based assessments.
If I was in your shoes, I'd still be giving a handful of paper tests because technique and foundational knowledge of terms (not to mention the ability to read music accurately) is important for the musician who wants to move on in a performing arts career.
But the vast majority of assessments would be performance-based.
History needs notes.
Science needs notes
Math needs notes
Literature needs notes
Foreign Language needs notes
Health needs notes
Drama needs notes (there is a TON of terminology, plus the kids should study the plays BEFORE they perform them.)
Fine Arts (Ceramics, Draw/Paint, etc.), Technical Arts (Shop, Graphic Design, Yearbook, etc.), Home Economics: some notes at the outset of a unit, then performance-based assessments,, though I would argue that a final unit assessment should have a PORTION that is on paper.
Music is somewhere in the continuum above depending on your curriculum and how your school has traditionally structured your class.
Maybe the reason you're hesitant (and understandable annoyed) is because so many schools use performing arts classes as a dumping ground and expect every kid to pass with a good grade if they make some effort.
My last music teaching colleague was an amazing concert musician so there was no quarter there. Lots of kids would've gotten bad grades, but he taught a lot too, so they could improve by learning the fundamental knowledge underpinning music. But that was a charter.
In all the conventional public middle and high schools where I've worked, music and arts classes act more like clubs. As long as you show up and turn something in, you were getting an A or a B; the teacher wasn't grading for quality of work/performance. Frankly, I hate that because if grades offer clear feedback on performance, they can move a kid to improve over time. But I do completely understand why that happens in our current environment. It stinks though.
Yeah, I think I'm with you. Just years of having leaders say "we are ALL doing this!!" and many of us going "really?" as they obviously forgot there are performance classes and we feel "less than a real teacher" and they try to fit us into the "universal" policy.
Thank you! This is great information on why note-taking is a best practice in education. I love Cornell Notes. I had a hard time getting the students to buy into it. They don’t want to do that much thinking. I think this needs to be started in the earlier grades and across the curriculum, starting with giving more guidance and then letting the students eventually be able to pull out main ideas and summarize information more independently.
I'm hoping to train the 5th grade teachers in its implementation next year.
The key at first is modeling, modeling, modeling. I do everything on the board for pretty much all of 7th grade and 70% of the time in 8th grade; this last quarter I've eased off somewhat.
By 10th I'll just place a skeleton outline up on the board but I will continue to cold call for their cue questions (plus this allows for review) and their summaries.
One thing I hear repeatedly from kids in public schools in Seattle and young adults who graduated high school is how boring everything is. With equity removing challenging materials in favor of the slowest learners in the classroom, they mostly learn to hate school. I don't think notetaking will help. They already know the material and want to be challenged by new materials. I hope we pass out of this equity experiment soon as the results are in across America.
It's boring because they aren't asked to DO anything in class. If they are taking notes, it's often copying bulleted slide decks which is NOT what I recommend in the article. The classes are uninspiring, so they spend their days gaming or scrolling. There's no THERE there.
They are disengaged also because, frankly, the teachers know so little about their subjects (less and less as the standards for bachelor's degrees get watered down as freshmen enter knowing even less because the standards at high schools have been watered down -- we're spiraling ever lower, just faster now with AI cheating) they don't have a handle on the great stories and the great biographies of the great men and women who moved their fields, or moved within them. I wrote about the lack of teacher expertise and how it's affecting student learning here: https://educatedandfree.substack.com/p/your-kids-arent-learning-teachers?r=b8lae
What everyone is finally, FINALLY noticing is that the schools are failing across every dimension.
This makes sense a lot of sense to me. I graduated high school in 1999. We actually knew we had it pretty good, but - who could have predicted we would see the empire collapse in real time? Wow. I knew it in 2005. We had, by then, collectively and gleefully normalized hardcore pornography consumption amongst young men. I couldn't believe it then, and I am still shellshocked now. If thats ok, then uh....what isnt? We abandoned our boys to the worst people on earth. (We=parents, teachers, medicine, social work, government). Good luck teaching these poor boys.
Yes, and my Chem kids have stated for the last 5 years - they appreciate no chromebooks in my class!
But a million times yes to this
Yes! Amazing how much more I retain when I write by hand.
100% agree! As a school based SLP, I also agree that students with learning challenges should be expected to take notes as best they can as well. We are too quick to allow students to use technology such as speech-to-text or audio versions of what ever they are reading because of a learning disability because there is a displacement effect that occurs when they do not practice important skill on their own! Have you seen this new study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022096525000013?via%3Dihub
The teachers' colleges seem to cultivate teachers who are not content specialists. Here in Seattle, they also serve to develop social justice activism over scholarship. I once had to have a stand-in at my son's high school in 2008 after I found out his math teacher couldn't do math or teach math, so instead put on videos with unrelated content during class.
Many, many such cases, though I would say the abusive use of “instructional” videos is much more prevalent in the humanities.
Thank you so much for taking time to write this! I was a k-12 student outside USA and this is exactly how our classes were structured. We would start taking notes in 5th grade ( beginning of middle school) all the way through College! Your approach is much more supportive since our teachers have never explicitly explained us how to take the notes nor did they provide their own after the lecture!
Do you have a grade attached to the notes, e.g notebook checks? What assignments do you typically grade in week of one of your classes? I have been playing around this idea in my head and I’m trying best to figure out how to execute it - my school’s disciple policy or lack thereof has led most of the staff to conclude the only motivation we can use to get students to do work is through a grade.
Great idea, when I got to 6th grade, I was told to take notes. Nobody instructed me how to take notes in any way, shape or form, they just said, "take notes." I was an indifferent student at best, so it literally never occurred to me to ask how to take notes. So I tried to take notes, but that were completely useless to me, so I just read the textbook and tuned the teacher out.
I am going to try this with my homeschooled kids. We have just started using notebooks in second and fourth grade. I do the writing for the younger one. If I start modeling Cornell note taking now they should be way ahead of where I was when starting higher ed.
I'm a band director. How does this work in my class?
I'd think since your class is mostly a practicum -- if I'm wrong, correct me -- it would be unlikely, unless you were teaching students something new that you'd need them to study and write about or take an objective test on.
You're practice,, my guess, would tend toward the kinesthetic, so your students practice would be kinesthetic. The test is a performance. And almost nobody. (except maybe yearbook) has more of a public performance than your students.
If you were teaching performance though, and there were a lot of classroom minutes, I would still think the Cornell Notes process would benefit your students so they could go to their notes during independent practice.
I think what bugs me is that universal doesn’t apply to 20-30% of the school. Perhaps the universal rule is we should be doing more practicum.
I don’t know. I’ve taught grammar, history, literature, math (temporarily), and art history. Even arts students benefit from notetaking in the early stages of development, especially if they’re in the early stages of learning techniques developed in a particular time period by particular artists or groups of artists.
Except in lab classes, notes are helpful not just for long-term retention, but as a behavioral control.
Maybe your site is more under control than all of mine were, but the difference between a class where everyone is expected to take notes and where the kids just “listen” and sometimes practice a skill when the teacher isn’t talking at them is night and day in terms of behavior, competence, and joy.
I think I can concur with your concept just not the universal aspect. Semantics, I agree. But when you start saying “except in lab classes” and the like I have flashbacks to many many meetings as a teacher “this doesn’t apply to me, how will I show compliance or defiance”
I definitely sympathize with you.
In general, I'm writing for schools that are an absolute unmitigated mess and teachers who are adrift, unable to teach because of garbage policy.
If we go through all the classes offered in most high schools, notes should apply everywhere, except music, which has LEGITIMATE performance-based assessments.
If I was in your shoes, I'd still be giving a handful of paper tests because technique and foundational knowledge of terms (not to mention the ability to read music accurately) is important for the musician who wants to move on in a performing arts career.
But the vast majority of assessments would be performance-based.
History needs notes.
Science needs notes
Math needs notes
Literature needs notes
Foreign Language needs notes
Health needs notes
Drama needs notes (there is a TON of terminology, plus the kids should study the plays BEFORE they perform them.)
Fine Arts (Ceramics, Draw/Paint, etc.), Technical Arts (Shop, Graphic Design, Yearbook, etc.), Home Economics: some notes at the outset of a unit, then performance-based assessments,, though I would argue that a final unit assessment should have a PORTION that is on paper.
Music is somewhere in the continuum above depending on your curriculum and how your school has traditionally structured your class.
Maybe the reason you're hesitant (and understandable annoyed) is because so many schools use performing arts classes as a dumping ground and expect every kid to pass with a good grade if they make some effort.
My last music teaching colleague was an amazing concert musician so there was no quarter there. Lots of kids would've gotten bad grades, but he taught a lot too, so they could improve by learning the fundamental knowledge underpinning music. But that was a charter.
In all the conventional public middle and high schools where I've worked, music and arts classes act more like clubs. As long as you show up and turn something in, you were getting an A or a B; the teacher wasn't grading for quality of work/performance. Frankly, I hate that because if grades offer clear feedback on performance, they can move a kid to improve over time. But I do completely understand why that happens in our current environment. It stinks though.
Yeah, I think I'm with you. Just years of having leaders say "we are ALL doing this!!" and many of us going "really?" as they obviously forgot there are performance classes and we feel "less than a real teacher" and they try to fit us into the "universal" policy.
Thank you! This is great information on why note-taking is a best practice in education. I love Cornell Notes. I had a hard time getting the students to buy into it. They don’t want to do that much thinking. I think this needs to be started in the earlier grades and across the curriculum, starting with giving more guidance and then letting the students eventually be able to pull out main ideas and summarize information more independently.
I'm hoping to train the 5th grade teachers in its implementation next year.
The key at first is modeling, modeling, modeling. I do everything on the board for pretty much all of 7th grade and 70% of the time in 8th grade; this last quarter I've eased off somewhat.
By 10th I'll just place a skeleton outline up on the board but I will continue to cold call for their cue questions (plus this allows for review) and their summaries.
One thing I hear repeatedly from kids in public schools in Seattle and young adults who graduated high school is how boring everything is. With equity removing challenging materials in favor of the slowest learners in the classroom, they mostly learn to hate school. I don't think notetaking will help. They already know the material and want to be challenged by new materials. I hope we pass out of this equity experiment soon as the results are in across America.
It's boring because they aren't asked to DO anything in class. If they are taking notes, it's often copying bulleted slide decks which is NOT what I recommend in the article. The classes are uninspiring, so they spend their days gaming or scrolling. There's no THERE there.
They are disengaged also because, frankly, the teachers know so little about their subjects (less and less as the standards for bachelor's degrees get watered down as freshmen enter knowing even less because the standards at high schools have been watered down -- we're spiraling ever lower, just faster now with AI cheating) they don't have a handle on the great stories and the great biographies of the great men and women who moved their fields, or moved within them. I wrote about the lack of teacher expertise and how it's affecting student learning here: https://educatedandfree.substack.com/p/your-kids-arent-learning-teachers?r=b8lae
What everyone is finally, FINALLY noticing is that the schools are failing across every dimension.
Totally. 💯
This makes sense a lot of sense to me. I graduated high school in 1999. We actually knew we had it pretty good, but - who could have predicted we would see the empire collapse in real time? Wow. I knew it in 2005. We had, by then, collectively and gleefully normalized hardcore pornography consumption amongst young men. I couldn't believe it then, and I am still shellshocked now. If thats ok, then uh....what isnt? We abandoned our boys to the worst people on earth. (We=parents, teachers, medicine, social work, government). Good luck teaching these poor boys.