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Active Note Making 1

The document describes three note-making activities that can be used individually or as part of a workshop for first-year students. Activity 1 introduces students to the difficulty of retaining information without taking notes. Activity 2 helps students identify important versus unimportant information. Activity 3 has students practice note-taking skills by watching a video, taking notes, and answering quiz questions using their notes.

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Sheran Manlongat Ballesteros
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138 views3 pages

Active Note Making 1

The document describes three note-making activities that can be used individually or as part of a workshop for first-year students. Activity 1 introduces students to the difficulty of retaining information without taking notes. Activity 2 helps students identify important versus unimportant information. Activity 3 has students practice note-taking skills by watching a video, taking notes, and answering quiz questions using their notes.

Uploaded by

Sheran Manlongat Ballesteros
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Active Note-making

The following three activities form part of a note-making workshop run for first-
year students.

There are two versions of each activity, but individual activities can be swapped
between versions.

Individual activities can also be used independently.

The basis for each activity can be adapted as desired with different topics or
used as is.

These activities can be done with the students working in small groups or
independently (I have always done it in small groups).

Instructions are below, and instructions for each activity are also included in the
document for that activity.

1. Activity 1: Information retention without note-making

Purpose:
To introduce students to the reality of trying to retain new information without
activity recording it in some way.

This activity starts toward the beginning of the session, but the quiz based on this
activity takes place towards the end. This allows students to compare the
difficulty in completing this quiz versus the Activity 3 quiz, in which they are
allowed to make and consult their notes.

Topic paragraphs:
Version 1: Brief history of the modern Olympic Games
Version 2: The Tunkguska Impact Event

Materials:
o One of the two topic paragraphs
o Quiz (with key)

Timing:
10-15 minutes (spread over the session)
3-5 minutes for reading the paragraph
10 minutes for the quiz

Instructions:
1. Have the students put away any recording devices, such as phones,
laptops, pens/notebooks, etc, under the instruction that no one is
allowed to take notes
2. Read them one of the topic paragraphs out loud to the students
3. Continue with the session
4. Toward the end session, administer the Activity 1 quiz to the students
i. I administer the quiz using Kahoot! and as a team activity
5. Discuss the difference in information retention, even within a single
hour, for information they haven’t recorded versus information they
have recorded.

2. Activity 2: Identifying Important Information

Purpose:
To help students learn to identify important information/concepts versus
unimportant information/concepts.

This activity is aimed at helping students make effective and efficient notes,
rather than trying to record every single word spoken in a lecture/seminar or read
in textbooks/research.

Topics:
Version 1: The Antonine Wall
Version 2: The Tacoma Narrows Bridge

Materials:
o Paragraph 1, which has all of the important words removed*
o Multiple choice quiz
o Paragraph 2, which has all of the unimportant words removed*
o Full paragraph (with quiz key)

* To avoid students trying to puzzle out the missing words, the blank lines where
words have been removed are all the same length, and are not indicative of how
many words have been removed or how long those words are.

Timing:
15 minutes

Instructions:
1. Distribute Paragraph 1 and the multiple choice quiz to the students
2. Ask them to try and answer the five questions using Paragraph 1, to
the best of their abilities
i. Students will generally find this very challenging, and will tend to
guess, which I encourage in this part of the activity, because the
questions should be almost impossible to answer with the
information provided
3. Collect Paragraph 1 back and distribute Paragraph 2
4. Ask the students to answer the questions again, using the same quiz
sheet. This allows them to see how their previous answers compare to
the answers when they have more relevant information.
5. When the students have completed the quiz, discuss their levels of
certainty in their answers between the first and second attempts
6. Provide the answers, and discuss how the second attempt, although
perhaps incomplete, gives a better picture of the relevant content of
the topic
i. Most students will have more correct answers (or more answers
at all) using Paragraph 2
7. Distribute the full paragraph. This is more for the students’ sake, so
they can see all of the information, and nothing needs to be done with
the full paragraph from a teaching perspective.

3. Activity 3:

Purpose:
To have students practice note-making skills, such as recording important
information and applying it to answer questions.

Topic videos:
Version 1: The Elephant’s Foot (Chernobyl)
Version 2: Self-awareness in elephants

Materials
o Elephant’s Foot video or elephant self-awareness video
o Quiz (with quiz key)

Timing:
15 minutes
4-6 minutes for the video
10 minutes for the quiz

Instructions:
1. Play either video for the students
2. Have them make individual notes
3. Administer the Activity 3 quiz to the students
a. I administer the quiz using Kahoot! and as a team activity
4. Discuss how the students have done (usually very well) on a new topic
by identifying and recording important information, and then applying
that when asked

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