I absolutely love the collaborative note taking idea utilizing Google. In today's class, I got 250% more information out of the content because I wasn't juggling listening, trying to take notes and trying to follow along with the clicking instructions. This can be a fantastic tool that I can see myself using in my classroom. I believe that note taking is an important skill that needs to be learned, but there are times when it's just better to listen. Having two, and maybe even three, people take a set offers different perspectives as we hear (or interpret) things differently and I love the idea that I, as the teacher, will be able to review the class set for correctness prior to the notes being reviewed. Everyone receives the same information and I can fill in any holes before information is learned incorrectly.
A bonus pro to this method is teaching responsibility. Just as we have learned in our other classes, when we use the jigsaw method to learn, as well as teach our classmates, there is a sense of responsibility that comes with the task. When we are tasked with the responsibility of others, there is a natural motivation to work harder. I think that this strengthens the sense of community in our classrooms. There is no need to force the struggle. We all have strengths and we all have things that don't come quite as easily. If we all work together, maybe we will all have a chance.
We should try to implement collaborative note taking in our future classes!
ReplyDeleteYou brought up a lot of very good points when it come to the benefits of group note taking. I, also, got a lot more out of class from not worrying that I should be taking notes. I am also not the strongest note taker. That is the one thing I would we curious how it worked. What happens when you have a student who isn't good at multitasking for listening and taking notes? Yes, Jeff said that is why we have multiple note takers but it is kind of embarrassing to have to take notes for the whole class to see, if you are bad at it. However, you brought up a good point about the teacher being able to go in and edit the notes. It is great that a teacher can go in and edit notes to provide extra information or to correct misconceptions. Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
ReplyDeletePatty, one other things... I think we should bring up to our professors about using this note share for the jigsaw. Do you remember how we were struggling to hear the other part, get the notes, and share our parts all at once? For Jigsaw we should have the expert groups enter their parts into a google note doc. Then we would have a combined set of information that the expert groups agreed on. This would allow us to focus when each expert was talking instead of rushing to write stuff down or type it out. I am glad you brought up Jigsaw!
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