Thursday, October 14, 2010

Who does the writing?

One high school math teacher I observed gave out typed notes on a new topic.  One advantage of this is that everyone gets correct information, and students who may have difficulty seeing the whiteboard have notes right in front of them.  A disadvantage of handing out prewritten notes is that the students are not writing the notes; sometimes the act of writing the notes helps the student learn the material, so the teacher takes away the learning opportunity when they give out their notes.  Also, the student doesn’t write down the information in their own words, so if they have language difficulties, another person’s words may make it harder to understand the concept. When a worksheet is given out, it may not make it into the binder, whereas if notes are always written into a math notebook, there’s a single place for reference notes. As a future teacher, I'm wondering if it's better to always have students write their own notes, or if there are times when I'll decide to hand out "formal" notes.

1 comment:

  1. I HATE typed notes. Just a personal opinion as a student not as a teacher.

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