Summarizing+&+Note+Taking

Summarizing and Note Taking - Saucon Valley
Carl Atkinson, Ro Frey and Lynn Cheddar =**Summarizing and Note Taking** =

Effect Size: 1.00 Percentile Gain 34

Research and Theory on Summarizing

1. To effectively summarize, students must delete, substitute and keep some information. Synthesis of information = macro-structure.

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

3. Being aware of the explicit structure of information aids summarizing information.  EXAMPLE: Keeping and Deleting Information

EXAMPLE: Substituting Information

Classroom Practice in Summarizing  EXAMPLE: Rule-based Strategy
 * Rule-based Strategy
 * Follow a set of rules or steps to produce a summary. Rules mirror the cognitive process of summary.



 EXAMPLES: Frames
 * Summary Frames
 * Series of questions provided to students. Each frame captures the basic structure of a different type of text. Questions are designed to highlight the critical elements for specific types of information
 * Narrative
 * Topic-Restriction-Illustration
 * Definition
 * Argumentation Frame
 * Problem/Solution Frame
 * Conversation Frame




 * Reciprocal Teaching
 * Involves four components: summarizing, question, clarifying and prediction.
 * A strategy that provides for a deep level of understanding necessary for an effective summary.

Other Information Wormeli, R., (2005). __Summarization in any subject__. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
 * Summarization can be done in writing, orally, dramatically, artistically, visually, physically, musically, in groups or individually.
 * “We summarize en route to mastery. Students must dig for information, make sense of it, and attach meaning to it. (pp. ” 5 and 6)
 * The act of summarizing occurs when student use nonlinguistic representations, cues, questions and advance organizers as well.

• Primacy-regency effect
 * We remember best what we experience first in a lesson and we remember second best what we experience last. Summary (and reflection) at end of class/as closure is effective.

• Chunking a lecture Strategies to help students acquire the ability to summarize • Activate students’ personal background knowledge • Prime the student’s brains, - allowing the brain to pay attention and determine what’s meaningful in any text or experience. • Teach students to identify a text's underlying structure • Teach students to follow clues to meaning • Introduce students to analogies • Chunk text and learning experiences • Give student tools for encountering text • Stress scholarly objectivity • Teach students to evaluate their summaries • Teach student to paraphrase
 * Break the lecture into chunks to allow for more effective encoding in memory.
 * Use summarization structure to pre-assess students.
 * Use students’ summaries to inform and change instruction.
 * Use summaries to help students monitor their own comprehension process.

Research and Theory on Note-Taking Closely related to summarizing • Select. Omit trivial and redundant details. • Condense. Replace lists with a category term. • Organize. Choose headings and topic sentences. • Rephrase. Use your own words. • Elaborate. Make connections to existing knowledge.  Generalizations 1. Verbatim note taking is the least effective way to take notes. 2. Notes should be considered a work in progress. 3. Notes should be used as study guides for tests. 4. The more notes that are taken, the better.

 Classroom Practice in Note-Taking Use a variety of note taking formats to assist students who learn visually.

1. Teacher-Prepared Notes 2. Informal outline – used indentation to indicate major ideas and their related details. 3. Webbing uses the relative size of circles to indicate the importance of ideas and lines to indicate relationships. 4. Combination Notes uses informal outline and webbing. 





Other Information McPherson, F. (2001). __Note-taking__. http://www.memory-key.com/StudySkills/notetaking.htm

To use note taking effectively, students need to understand that its primary value is not in the record produced rather it is in the process itself. This process of taking notes guides the memory codes the learner makes. Note taking is a strategy for making information meaningful. It is therefore only effective to the extent that the learner paraphrases, organizes and makes sense of the information while taking notes.

Note taking is a strategy for making information meaningful. Connection is the heart of what makes information meaningful. Because connection is a key to remembering. The more connections, the more entry points there are to the information, therefore the easier it is to retrieve the information. Facts that the learner already knows very well and has no trouble remembering act as anchor points.

The more anchor points the learner can connect to, the more meaningful the new information becomes, and the more easily the learner can remember it. Note taking doesn’t have to make information meaningful, but it is mainly valuable to the extent that it does. So this is how a learner judges his/her note taking skills. <span style="color: #008000; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;"> Active Listening: Listen for the main point and major subpoints Listen for an organizational structure Pay attention to organizational cues Listen with your eyes Remove distractions Practice

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<span style="color: #800080; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 140%;">Helpful Websites <span class="wiki_link_ext">[|www.educationworld.com] http://its.guilford.k12.nc.us [|www.readingquest.org] [] http://marzano.iwcs.k12.va.us