Visual Notetaking


WHY VISUAL NOTETAKING?


Students learn in a myriad of ways.  VISUAL  NOTETAKING engages the students' minds by using the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create.  It allows students to process ideas in a fun and creative way and keeps the brain actively engaged.  Visual identifiers may help boost memory as an added bonus.


WHAT I DO:

In all of my first year undergraduate classes I employ Visual Notetaking.  This year I lectured on Thucydides in one class and the Apology in the other.  I asked my students to work on their Notetaking for a week after the lecture and their assignments were to be turned in just before their mid-term exam.  I do think that it helped prepare them for their exam.

I AM JUST THRILLED WITH THE RESULTS!!

The students did such an amazing job - see some of the images below.  The image above is way beyond what I expected!

If you are interested in the section of the Apology that I teach, and if you would like to see more examples of student Notetaking, you will find my Apology unit here: Perfect Pairing #1: SOCRATES AND THE INSANITY DEFENSE.


REGARDING MARKING:

The marking of Visual Notetaking is fairly easy to do compared to marking an essay, for instance.  I grade my students on their creativity, on their ability to make connections between ideas, on understanding the lecture, on editing down the lecture to crucial information, and on aesthetics.  You will find my guide to Visual Notetaking here:


STUDENT FEEDBACK:

The results speak for themselves.   Most of my students threw themselves into the assignment and my exam grades were higher overall.

Here are four more examples - one from my lecture on Thucydides, one from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and one from Plato's Apology:



Have a look at my latest post on Visual Notetaking: 
Visual Notetaking Addendum





THANKS FOR VISITING!

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Dilemma One Sheets



DILEMMA ONE SHEETS


As a new adjunct lecturer, I found myself completely overwhelmed with the amount of prep and marking.  I still do but have figured out a few ways to help lessen the constant inflow of essays.

Tip #3: DILEMMA ONE SHEETS


I have several Dilemmas available for sale but you could also create your own. You take a famous trial and distill the information into an easily accessible form. I do this by creating a One Sheet.

Traditionally one sheets are single page documents that summarize a person’s accomplishments, a product, or a film. They are sometimes used to introduce new artists and/or films. They usually contain an image or two, biographical information, and taglines.  I have created these Dilemma One Sheets to help students engage in critical reasoning and to introduce them to philosophy, ethics, law, and justice.  They may be used as homework or class work,  individual or group work, and even as seminar or debate preparation.


REGARDING MARKING:


I use these court cases in several ways. With the Dilemma One Sheets that I have created the students work alone or in groups. They read the One Sheet and then answer eight questions on the court case. I choose cases that raise interesting moral and ethical dilemmas.


I also have my students create their own Daily Dilemmas. I have found the marking of these to be less time consuming than grading an essay. You will immediately have a sense of the overall grade at first glance. I have them include an image of the case, summarize the key details of the events leading up to the case, use quotations and key phrases from the actual case, explain the outcome, ask eight questions regarding the case, and finally they answer four of the eight questions.


STUDENT FEEDBACK:


The students enjoy working together and debating the merits of their arguments. The cases usually force them to think about questions that are bound to cause healthy debate.


See my store to see several of these questions: Dilemma One Sheets
DILEMMA ONE SHEET #1
SCOPES TRIAL


EMMETT TILL


Having worked at both the High School and College levels, I am sure this idea will work extremely well with your students too.

Thanks for stopping by,




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Interpretive Note-taking



INTERPRETIVE NOTE-TAKING


As a new adjunct lecturer, I found myself completely overwhelmed with the amount of prep and marking.  I still do but have figured out a few ways to help lessen the constant inflow of essays.

Tip #2: Interpretive Note-taking

Interpretive Note-taking is my reworking of traditional annotation.


WHAT I DO:

I ask my students to annotate the text using more than yellow highlighter!  They need a legend to explain the various symbols used.  They underline words they don't understand, acknowledge figures of speech, take note of repetition, create images that capture the written word, and more.  I created a INTERPRETIVE NOTE-TAKING rubric to offer suggestions and help guide their work.

After the individual mark up is done I get them to work in groups to explain and explore their findings.


REGARDING MARKING:

The marking of their annotation is fairly easy to do compared to marking an essay, for instance.  I read several of the comments to get a sense of what their approach to the assignment is.  I record their questions and spend a lecture answering the most frequent questions or questions that seem interesting and/or important. 

This semester I am having a tougher time concentrating (I seem to still be suffering from a concussion from a few months ago). This type of assignment is perfect because I can stop and go back to where I left off and do not need to start all over.  

STUDENT FEEDBACK:

The students work hard on this assignment - I think perhaps some of the appeal is that they too can stop and start over several days. Furthermore, I say they are being marked entirely on effort not whether they have figured out the answers to their own questions or the text itself.  The images above are from my class when the students work in groups - this works very well and allows students to review their findings with their peers and gives them an opportunity to discuss the issues in-depth.

Here is one example - there are more in my product on TpT: INTERPRETIVE NOTE-TAKING



Having worked at both the High School and College levels, I am sure this idea will work extremely well with your students too.
Best,

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Why Socratic Seminars?



As a new adjunct lecturer, I found myself completely overwhelmed with the amount of prep and marking.  I still do but have figured out a few ways to help lessen the constant inflow of essays.

Tip #1: SOCRATIC SEMINARS

Socratic Seminars are wonderful for several reasons.  The students enjoy them and they thoroughly prepare.  It allows all students a chance to speak.  The seminar gives students the opportunity to participate in constructive discussions without feeling the pressure of asking questions during a lecture - for this reason, I believe, they ask more questions in the seminar.  It introduces students to annotation and engages them in analytical debate, critical thinking, and textual analysis.

WHAT I DO:


I ask my students to read quite a small section of text and prepare by marking up the text using my Interpretive Note-taking guide.  They also have to answer a series of questions that I upload onto Google Classroom.  Both are due before the seminar starts although they have access to these notes during the seminar.  After the seminar, they also have to reflect upon the seminar.  Both sets of questions are available in my Socratic Seminar (ANY TEXT).


I do have inner and outer circles where half the class participates in the inner circle while the other half only takes notes and listens to the inner group.  I then switch the groups.  This works perfectly as my classes are 80 minutes long and meet twice a week.  I have between 30 and 35 students in a regular class (15 to 18 in the seminar) so the size works well too.

  
I have added a new component to my seminars!  The outer circle engages in Visual Notetaking while the seminar is taking place.   I do this for several reasons: they are more focused on the discussion; this helps them prepare for a larger VNT assignment; they are not allowed any electronics in the outer circle and this gives them a way to be engaged without tuning out the discussion; VNT helps them remember the material more than traditional note-taking.  Here are two examples:



For high school teachers this method would work well too.  I would give the reading out several days before the seminar and then perhaps teach on another section of the text while they prepare.  With a flipped classroom you could get them to do the mark up over several classes.

REGARDING MARKING:


The amount of marking is far less than a short essay, for instance.  However, I find that the students learn more from this experience than writing a short reflective paper on the same material.


It's a win win situation as I enjoy the marking more and the students learn several skills at once: close reading, Interpretive commentary, textual analysis, and more.   Students must articulate their findings and provide evidence to support their ideas.


Last semester I taught two sections of my class The Aesthetics of Storytelling and two sections of The Human Condition: Revenge and Retribution/Justice and Law.


STUDENT FEEDBACK:


Here are some comments from students after the Socratic Seminar:










Thanks for visiting!!


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Back to school with Google Classroom


Back to school with Google Classroom

Before classes begin, make sure you set up your new classes. To do this you click on the plus button on the right side of the screen. Give it a theme:


I color code each semester. For instance, here are two of my classes from Winter 16:


Many teachers delete the courses after the semester ends, but I sometimes keep them for a few semesters to transfer assignments from one semester to the next.  You may archive the old classes.


During my first class, I review the class outline.   I post the outline on Classroom before the first class.  This is posted in the ABOUT section:




I read the outline to my students first before I explain how to sign up for Classroom so I have their attention.


Then I explain how they join the class.  Each class has its own code that you provide for the students.  

Make sure you give the right code to the right class!  

Once they go to Classroom they will be asked if they want to join a class and then they type in the code. Make sure your students use Google Chrome.

Safari or Firefox do work occasionally but don't let your students use these sites - sometimes they are able to sign up using a different server. I usually have a student or two come to me in a panic when they cannot turn in an assignment. Usually, it is because they managed to sign up using Firefox and I didn't notice. So prevent this confusion from the beginning.


You will see the students’ names appear as they sign up.


They will not be able to sign up with an email address other than the one they use for the purposes of official school communication. They cannot use another Gmail account.


I post their first reading during this class and make sure they can access the reading.

I usually assign a short story and have them read it for the next class and then they work in groups (online) during class - I usually begin with my BLACK CAT and WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY ESSAY? assignments.


I manage to work on grammar and assertions while ironing out the glitches of Classroom.

If they work in groups I encourage them to submit one group assignment only and to put their names on the first slide. They can share their file with their group members.


I also go around the room and write down their names to keep track of the groups in case they forget to include their group member names.


Remember to tell them that they must email you directly to get in touch with you (your email is listed in the ABOUT section) and not to hit reply to emails sent via the STREAM.


Thank you for visiting my blog.









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