Last week I began revisiting Marzano’s nine high-yield instructional strategies. Summarizing and note take is one of the nine. Meta-analysis indicates an effect size of 1.00 (a positive increase in score of 1.00 standard deviations). That’s significant! Below is more specific information about Summarizing and Note Taking.
Summarizing and Note Taking (Effect size = 1.00)
- To effectively summarize, students must delete some information, substitute some information, and keep some information.
- To effectively delete, substitute, and keep information, students must analyze the information at a fairly deep level.
- Being aware of the explicit structure of information is an aid to summarizing information.
- Verbatim not taking is, perhaps, the least effective way to take notes.
- Notes should be considered a work in progress.
- Notes should be used as study guides for tests.
- The more notes that are taken, the better.
How are your students summarizing content and taking notes? Do you review their notes? Could you use a note review as a formative assessment? Do you provide explicit directions regarding note taking (i.e. “write this down”)? These are some things to think about as you prepare for your classes next week.
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