INTRO
Have you ever wondered if there is a way in which you can improve your understanding while you are reading? Yes! definitely there are many ways in which we can improve and that is why the interest I have for my project is in note taking. How does note taking help improve reading better? Lets begin by defining what good reading is. Good reading is when we have the ability to read and feel that you engage with what you read and that it has the ability to change your life in some sort of way. I think that if you use your notes while you are reading you will definitely understand the lesson in a better way. It is a very useful resource to study. I think the people involved in this topic are students as well as teachers. I am trying to prove that note taking is a useful technique to understand our reading better and that if students and teachers practice it in a correct way they will get very good results. I will do a survey asking questions about note taking, like if they use note taking to read and / or how often they use note taking. I will apply it to 25 students of a class to demonstrate if note taking is helping them or not. I will also do an experiment that will consist in having two different types of reading, in one using notes and in the other no.
LIT REVIEW
In my first article, the author ensures to quote that "note taking is an important representation of knowledge" (Ludwig Ganske. Note-Taking: "A Significant and Integral Part of Learning Environments" Educational Communication and Technology. Vol. 29, No. 3 (Fall, 1981), pp. 155 ), but even though it is seen in all the educational environment it is not yet well accepted. Then I came up with this second article where the authors try to demonstrate by using a group of people of 40 students if note taking influence in their performance. They came up with very surprising results, were we can see that they had a better performance when they studied from others people notes. Now,if I include whfat Haas and Flower has to say about rhetorical reading that people use different techniques when reading and that people usually interpret reading in their own way. And we obviously have our own way of understanding better a passage, like for example for some maybe it is just easy to read once and that is it, for other they highlight and for others they take notes on what they read.
So all the three authors are trying to prove my hypothesis is note taking is good to use or not. They are trying to focus on students and teachers so that they can understand the advantages/ disadvantages of note taking.
I really like my second article were they actually come and do like the experiment im planning to do. They really put work in to it to demonstrate how this technique can be helpful when we are studying or attending class.
CONNECTION PIECE
All of the the three articles have something in common. They all discuss techniques for understanding a reading better. How do we do that, well taking notes is a good technique we can use in order to express our ideas on what we are reading. We can totally throw on paper with our own words what we are understanding while we are reading. I think note taking is also helpful in the part of vocabulary, because when you are reading and don't understand to some words what you have to do is write it down so that when you are reading next time you can remember that word's definition. I know the majority of people don't like note taking, or simply they are into different techniques of reading. But they should always remember that note taking is something that we should apply to our daily reading, it is a simpler way to understand what we are reading better. In this project I am trying to demonstrate that if you take good notes you can have a fully understanding of what your lecturer thought , or about what you've read. Note taking should be involved in our daily basis, not only in our classes but also in our work and/or any other organizations we attend. It is a very constructive technique which we should all give it a try! I also consider that teachers and students are connected. why? well ,because a students takes notes to understand something better, a teacher also uses notes to understand better. A teacher influences a student to take notes because the teacher can demonstrate how taking notes just makes it easier for them.
Methodology
For my research i did 20 surveys in which I included 10 questions about note taking. In this survey people are supposed to select in between simple answers like always,sometimes,never, rarely. This way is simple for people to type down what their opinion about note taking is and you can simply understand what their answer is. Basically the questions included: do you take notes and if you take notes properly. I think this is a very easy type of research because you get to know what others think. My second type of research are experiments, in which I will have two people read a passage from a book and then one will take notes and the other no. After they are done with their reading they will answer to several comprehension questions. I want to demonstrate that if you take notes will you are reading you will get a better understanding of what have read. So in that way the person who took notes will get a better grade in the comprehension questions.
Research Data
I was doing surveys, we went through different halls looking for people to answer the surveys, they were very accessible and definitely helpful in my research process. I had 20 surveys to do during my class time. It was a very good experience because I have done it before but it had never resulted as good as this one. The survey had simple questions like sometimes, never, random so the people just had to check on the box with the answer they prefer. That way makes it simpler for them to answer.
Research Analysis
In my surveys I found out that not that many people use notes to study. Their answers vary from sometimes,rarely and never. So this is something that students do not do often maybe because they are not used to this process or because they dont know how to use that process correctly. When i did the experiment with two people, one taking notes and the other not, it went pretty good for the one that took notes and that demostrates that note taking is a helpful tool to study. But it seems people are not used to that kind of help. So i think teachers should motivate students on how to take good notes to have a better grade.
Conversation Piece
The research was directed for students and teachers. It is a good way to show if people really use their note taking skills to study for their classes or exams. I read the works from the authors I quoted and it seems that they are really pushing for students to use their notes in a better way so that it could be easier for them to understand the classes better. Teachers are also into this research topic because teachers usually use notes to study their topics for class it just makes it easier for them to remember all the content.
Cited Works
Ludwig Ganske. Note-Taking: "A Significant and Integral Part of Learning Environments" Educational Communication and Technology. Vol. 29, No. 3 (Fall, 1981), pp. 155-175
Fisher, Judith L. and Mary B. Harris. "Note Taking and Recall" The Journal of Educational Research. (Volume 67, Number 7, March 1974) : 291-292
Hass, Christina and Linda Flower. Rhetorical Reading Strategies and the Construction of Meaning
Source: College Composition and Communication, Vol. 39, No. 2 (May, 1988), pp. 167-183
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