sugarlevi wrote:
Oh, I like smartboards, they are so shiny and techy, and they're like your own show and tell computers, switching between the different boards you've already used to explain different points, and switching to movies, programs, and youtube movies, I love 'm. So shiny. Though they are not that widespread yet.
I think they could be used to really enhance lessons and make classes more engaging. But a lot of the time that's not how they're used. Like you said, they look nice, dress up a classroom, and make the school or institution using them seem technologically up-to-date. But they're not at all necessary for a lot of classes. I didn't see them used for anything that couldn't have been accomplished using projectors, media carts, and whiteboards. They're also really expensive, and one of the universities where I live is investing a ton of money into equipping its classrooms with them. I know that this same university, however, laid off at least one professor one month before he was supposed to receive tenure because they're too cheap to pay tenurial salaries.
Isn't making notes yourself, and while hearing the teacher talking about it, a very good way to learn. At least for me copying down my own notes, is one way to enforce what I just learned.
Besides students and schoolkids don't prepare even if they are needed to […]
I think it varies from person to person. I didn't find that I was able to concentrate or actually understand material as easily if I tried to process it while copying it. A lot of the time, I think that students are just so focused on copying down the notes verbatim that they're not actually paying any attention to what they're writing. You just don't always have time to. (There's also the problem that a lot of students don't know that you're not supposed to write down every word, but even if you're able to take notes well and quickly, you don't always have enough time to really think about what you're writing down and work through things that you need clarified.)
As for copying notes to re-enforce what you've learned, I certainly think that's more effective than writing notes for material that is completely new to the student. But I've never had a teacher who expected a class to learn lessons before they were covered in class. In my experience, notes on new material were always taken first, and then the relevant textbook reading was assigned to be completed afterward. I would like to believe that if high school students were expected to prepare in advance, the majority of them would. I think that there's way too much handholding in high school, and that most students are capable of much more than they're given credit for. This is a pretty optimistic view, though, and I'm not sure if it would hold true in reality.
Jarvik7 wrote:
My experience in university is that taking notes is a waste of time. It takes away from your concentration and (if you're like me) you only use them come test time. It is far better for profs to give outlines (or a copy of their ppt slides) out before hand so you can follow along in class and make BRIEF notes instead of trying to transcribe everything that happens.
Yeah, I totally agree. I definitely rarely even looked at my notes, unless I needed them to do homework or was cramming for a test. I usually found my textbooks a lot clearer and easier to study from than my class notes, and a lot of the time I ended up tossing my notes in the recycling and just taking notes from my textbooks on my own or just not using notes at all. I haven't had to take notes from lectures very often, but I think that handing out an outline beforehand is a really clever idea and that having some structure would help a lot of students stay focused while writing their lecture notes.
yukamina wrote:
My teachers that actually have notes for class put online so we can get them ahead of time, so class time is more productive. I write them down by hand, it's just my preference. I find going over the notes manually, instead of just printing them off, reinforces what I learn.
Otherwise, there are no notes and it's up to us to pay attention and write down the important stuff.
That's really cool that you have teachers who do that. I think that writing your notes out by hand could also be useful for learning, and I've sometimes recopied notes to try to re-enforce material, but a lot of the time I just find doing that really tedious and time-consuming. Do you read over the notes before you copy them out by hand? That sounds like it would be a lot better than trying to digest the information at the same time as you're writing it.
I think for high school, writing notes in class is fine. You spend too much time at school to be doing so much stuff outside of class. I certainly wasn't very motivated to study in high school, compared to me now.
Yeah, it's definitely workable, but I think it's a really big part of why high school is so ridonkulously slow-paced. It also really does cut into time that could be spent on discussion, answering questions, doing activities in class, and other things more interesting than copying notes. Students could also have more time to do homework or study in class.
Last edited by shirokuro (2010 January 02, 1:47 pm)
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