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Summarizing & Note-taking: Effective Strategies

Goals for Today’s Session

Understand the benefits of directly teaching students summarizing and note-taking strategies as a way to effectively extend learning.

Identify recommended practices to help students get the most out of summarizing and note-taking.

Pre-Assessment on Summarizing and Note-Taking

My students are competent at summarizing information.

I expect my students to already know how to summarize .

When my students summarize or take notes in my class, they really have to think deeply about the content.

Note-taking by students is a valuable use of instructional time.

My students learn effectively through the summarizing and note-taking activities we do in class.

My students‟ notes are helpful to them in understanding how content relates to big ideas.

Summarizing & note-taking…

…require students to distill information into a parsimonious, synthesized form.

In other words, the students must be able to figure out what is necessary information to the overall meaning of the topic.

*Note: summarizing ≠ paraphrasing

Generalizations from Research:

Summarizing

To effectively summarize, students must delete some information, substitute some information, and keep some information.

To effectively delete, substitute, and keep information, students must analyze the information at a fairly deep level.

Being aware of the explicit structure of information is an aid to summarizing information.

Analysis

ASK DISTINGUISH OBSERVE DIVIDE ORDER

CATALOG DOCUMENT OUTLINE EXAMINE

CLASSIFY COMPARE EXPLAIN REASON

CONTRAST CORRELATE SEGMENT INFER

DEDUCE SEQUENCE INSPECT SORT

DIFFERENTIATE SURVEY DISSECT

TRANSFORM

Recommendations for Classroom

Practice: The Rule-Based Strategy

The Rule-Based Strategy follows this protocol: 1) Delete trivial material that is unnecessary to

understanding.

2) Delete redundant material.

3) Substitute super-ordinate terms for lists (e.g. “flowers” for daisies, tulips, and roses)

4) Select a topic sentence, or invent one if it is missing.

Activity: “Rule-Based” Strategy

Read the sample passage in your hand-out. Read through the first and second paragraphs as I do a “think aloud” process. Follow what I do in the example paragraphs.

With a partner, work through the third paragraph together. Is there anything redundant, trivial, or unnecessary to your

understanding?

Complete the reflective thinking activity on p. 2 in your hand-out.

Before the “Rule-Based” Strategy—Paragraph 1

Most scientists believe our solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of the solar nebula--a cloud of interstellar gas, dust, and ice created from previous generations of stars. As time went on, the grains of ice and dust bumped into and stuck to one another, eventually forming the planets, moons, comets, and asteroids as we know them today.

After the “Rules-Based” Strategy—P1

Most scientists believe our solar system was formed 4.6 billion years ago with the gravitational collapse of the solar nebula--a cloud of interstellar gas, dust, and ice interstellar material created from previous generations of stars solar nebula. As time went on, the grains of ice and dust bumped into and stuck to one another, eventually forming the planets, moons, comets, and asteroids heavenly bodies as we know them today.

Before the “Rule-Based” Strategy—Paragraph 2

How this transition from the solar nebula to planets took place has both fascinated and mystified scientists. Why did some planets, like Venus, develop thick, poisonous atmospheres, while others, like Earth, become hospitable to life? Partial answers are available from the study of the chemical composition of the solar system bodies, which scientists find are significantly different from one another. This information helps them model various processes for planet formation, but they are still hampered by one major question: What was the original solar nebula made of?

After the “Rules-Based” Strategy—P2

How this transition from the solar nebula to planets took place has both fascinated and mystified intrigued scientists. Why did some planets, like Venus, develop thick, poisonous atmospheres, while others, like Earth, become hospitable to life? Partial answers are available from the study of the chemical composition of the solar system bodies, which scientists find are significantly different from one another. This information helps them model various processes for planet formation, but they are still hampered by one major question: What was the original solar nebula made of? Scientists have some of the answers but they really need to know of what the original solar system was made.

•Read the sample passage in your hand-out. Read through the first and second paragraphs as I do a “think aloud” process. Follow what I do in the example paragraphs. DONE

•With a partner, work through the third paragraph together. •Is there anything redundant, trivial, or unnecessary to your understanding?

•Complete the reflective thinking activity on p. 2 in your hand-out.

Activity: Continued

Summarizing Practice with

Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching is one of the best researched strategies available to teachers.

Reciprocal Teaching is an example of Generalization Two, analysis skills. Although reciprocal teaching begins with the generation of a summary statement, it might be considered a “first draft” of a summary. This strategy provides for a deep level of understanding necessary for an effective summary.

The four roles of reciprocal teaching are: summarizer questioner clarifier predictor

Reciprocal Teaching Roles: Activity #2

Please quietly read the selection in your hand-out titled “Realizing the Promise of Generation Y” from Educational Leadership. (Stop when you get to the STOP sign.)

When you are finished, draw a card from the baggie at your table to find out what your role is. Take a few minutes to complete your task based on just that section of the article.

At my signal, the “student leaders” will lead the other members of the group through the passage.

Note-Taking Strategies

Write About strategy (Source: 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom by Judith Dodge)

This can be scaffolded for struggling students by supplying the key words from a passage or about a topic.

Students must visualize, identify important terms, and write a summary that relates the key information together.

My Notes Page strategy (Source: 25 Quick Formative Assessments for a Differentiated Classroom by Judith Dodge)

Students must think about the topic in several different ways. A key here is that there should be different information in all the boxes!

Two-Column Notes strategy Students can divide their notebook paper in half. The left-hand column

can be a guiding question or main idea. Details can be aligned in the right-hand column.

Cornell Notes This is similar to two-column notes, but a generalization or summary

statement is added to the bottom.

Notes about Note-Taking

What doesn‟t work: Having students copy facts/definitions

-if they don‟t interact with the information, the students will not be able to connect the information to larger constructs

-students can get those same facts with a press of a computer button; what they cannot get is how they personally can relate to the information

A daily diet of cloze notes -while cloze notes may be effective in small doses depending on the purpose of

the notes, cloze notes that students complete that are a fill-in-the-blank-word-for-word-from-the-text will not allow students to think deeply about the content

See „em once and forget about „em later -notes are meant to be added to, clarified, questioned, referred back to in

order to make connections

-students need to USE their notes as part as the process of learning

Mandating one-size-fits-all in note-taking ALL THE TIME.

Ticket Out of the Room: Reflection on LearningTeacher Name: _____________________________________________________Session: Summarizing and Note-Taking, Part 1: Effective StrategiesDate: ____________________________________________________________

With respect to our work today, please reflect on the following:

1. What changes might I make in my classroom related to summarizing and note-taking practices?

2. What support from colleagues, administrators, or resource specialists might I need to make these changes?

3. What was an important “a-ha” from today‟s seminar that resonated with me? Why?

4. What questions do I still have about the use of the “Rule-Based” summarizing and “Reciprocal Teaching Roles” strategies on student learning?