April 18, 2008

Note Organization Formats That Inhibit or Promote Learning

    ANALYZING A NOTE ORGANIZATION FORMAT

    Answer yes (y) or no (n) to the following questions regarding the way you organize your notes. 

    1.    Do notes visually separate main ideas from other main ideas with space?             . 
    2.    Do notes visually separate main ideas from details with space?                 . 
    3.    Do notes visually separate details from other details with space?             .
    4.    Do notes Include numbers, letters or symbols to indicate how many details there are to             .
        remember?
    5.    Do notes promote self-testing by quickly reveal what has been learned and what has not             .
                before a test is taken?
    6.    Do notes visually and physically separate learned and not yet learned material?             .
    7.    Do notes make it easy to regroup or reorganize main ideas and details?               .
    8.    Do notes require mental manipulation of ideas to set up and review notes analyze, evaluate,              .
                 synthesize, condense, and restructure notes?
    9.    Are notes rewritten in one’s own words using abbreviations, symbols, short phrases?             .
    10.  Do notes promotes summarizing of main ideas?             .
    11.    Do notes allow for the formation of questions out of main ideas?             .
    12.    Is the note organization format simple?             .
    13.    Can notes be conveniently and efficiently reviewed and recited?             .
    14.    Do notes ease evaluation of test performance and effectiveness of learning tools?             .
    15.    Are notes easily portable in a pocket or purse?             .
   
                   TOTAL SCORE FOR YOUR NOTE ORGANIZATION FORMAT –     _____

  To establish a score reflecting the effectiveness of your note organization format, give each yes 1 point and 0 points for each no.  Add up the points and put that total on the line for the TOTAL SCORE FOR YOUR NOTE ORGANIZATION FORMAT.  Use that score to compare your current way of setting up notes to the note organization formats presented below.  After reviewing the information below on note organization formats, you may want to change some of your answers in the analysis above.

The sample text used below in presenting these various note organization formats is from How To Study In College by Walter Pauk, 5th Edition, Houghton Mifflin, 1993.  This is an excellent resource for learners who are serious about earning the highest grades in the minimum amount of time.

RATING FIVE NOTE ORGANIZATION FORMATS

Five note organization formats are rated below in terms of their efficiency in promoting learning.  The rating begins with the least efficient and ends with the most efficient.

   Format #1   Hiliting a Textbook Format

Rehearse Information Through Recitation

    No single activity is more important in strengthening your memory than recitation.  That’s because recitation forces you to think seriously about what you’ve read or heard.  This deep thinking (experts call it deep cognitive processing ) is the key to making memories last.    To reap the benefits of recitation, you need to know how to recite.  But it also helps to understand how reciting strengthens your memory and why reciting is more effective than rereading.
    Learn How to Recite    Most students have only a vague idea of what recitation involves.  Others more familiar with reciting incorrectly assume that there is only one method of doing so.  Although there is a traditional method of reciting, if you follow some basic guidelines, you can recite in several ways.  In fact, the best method of reciting is not the best known.
    Do Traditional Reciting  Traditional reciting involves restating information out loud, in your own words, and from memory.  For example, if you read a paragraph from a textbook, look away, and the explain the meaning of what you have just read, then you are reciting.
    Unfortunately, not all students are keen on this kind of reciting.  Some feel that the process is strange or unnatural or don’t like talking to themselves.  Others are reluctant to recite in a quiet place where people are studying.  Still others are embarrassed to be heard reciting no matter what.  As a result, many students don’t recite.  But there are other ways to recite that avoid such embarrassments.  The trick is to stick to the basics of reciting.
 
Scoring For The Hiliting Organization Format

1.    Visually separates main ideas from other main ideas with      No  =  0  points
        space.
2.    Visually separates main ideas from details with space.          No  =  0  points
3.    Visually separates details from other details with space.          No  =  0  points
        It is impossible to visibly separate ideas and details using space  when hiliting. 
4.    Numbers, letters, and symbols indicate how many details        No  =  0  points        there are to remember.
        After hiliting, one could take an extra step to jot down numbers in the margins or cram them between the lines, but the memory-enhancing space between ideas is missing and visually, this is messy. 
5.    Promotes self-testing by quickly revealing what has been        No  =  0  points   
    learned and what has not.
        Isolating main ideas without also glimpsing details when self-testing is nearly impossible; therefore, discovering if details have been learned without the help of clues is difficult. 
6.    Visually and physically separates learned and not yet            No  =  0  points
    learned material.
        In the Hiliting Format, there is no easy way to separate learned and not-yet-learned material; therefore, hiliting makes it very difficult to easily identify what is learned and what is not-yet-learned.
7.    Main ideas and details can be regrouped /reorganized.        No  =  0  points        Ideas cannot be regrouped and reorganized in this format because hiliting involves no rewriting.
8.    Requires mental manipulation of ideas to set up & review        No  =  0  points    notes analyze, evaluate, synthesize, condense, and restructure notes.
        Reading and rereading hilited words involves little to no mental manipulation which makes concentration and learning more difficult and unnecessarily time consuming. 
9.    Notes can be rewritten in one’s own words using            No  =  0  points
    abbreviations,  symbols, short phrases.
        Hiliting does not involve rewriting therefore precludes the benefits of using one’s own words, abbreviations, symbols, and short phrases.
10.    Promotes summarizing of main ideas.            No  =  0  points            Hiliting does not involve the regrouping of main ideas into summaries.  Visually     isolating main ideas from details is also more difficult to spot in the hiliting forma.
11.    Easy  to form questions out of main ideas and answers out    No =  0  points     of details.
         Hiliting itself does not involve making questions out of main ideas or answers out of related details.  This must be done in an extra step not required in more efficient note formats.
12.    Simple format.            Yes =  1  point
        Hiliting is simple because it involves hiliting information that looks important.  However, in this case, simple does not promote learning.
13.    Can be conveniently and efficiently reviewed and recited.        No =  0  points            Because main ideas and details are not separate, efficient review and     recitation is difficult to impossible.
14.    Eases evaluation of test performance and effectiveness of    No =  0  points
     learning tools.
        In hiliting, it is not easy to identify material in textbooks and lectures that was missed on exams because hiliting involves no reorganization of main ideas and details for easy identification.  Comparing test answers to information hilited in a textbook or lecture notes is unwieldy because key words in test questions are usually in the same color as any other hilited words in texts and lectures.
15.    Easily portable in a pocket or purse.            No =  0  points    Carting around books full of hiliting is a very cumbersome way to have material to review and recite.

                                   Total Score For The Hiliting Format –  1 .  

Conclusions about the Hiliting Note Organization Format

In promoting learning, hiliting words on a page may be simple but learning requires much more than that.  To inhibit learning, this format has a lot going for it.  It has the potential to greatly increase the amount of time spent in studying and learning while producing poor results.  It also has the potential to fool students into believing that reading and reading means that the material has been learned. 

   Format #2    Main Idea and Relevant Details Format

The same material used above to demonstrate hiliting can be rewritten and organized into The Main Ideas and Relevant Details Format.

Rehearse Information Through Recitation    p. 89

No one activity is more imp. in strengthening mem. than recitation bcz it forces you to think seriously about what you’ve read or heard.

Filed under: Academic Learning Centers,Coaching,Peer-Tutoring,Small Private Practices,Tutoring Practices

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