An investigation in note-taking strategies for high school biology students

Abstract

High school students often struggle to find the value in writing down content information, known more commonly as note-taking. To many, note-taking is a requirement that involves filling notebook pages with content on which they will eventually be assessed. In a day and age where science educators are shifting their instruction from lecture to more inquiry or problem-based learning, note-taking remains an important skill and instructional tool in the science classroom. The focus of this action research project was to determine how various note-taking methods influenced students in a high school freshman biology classroom. My research questions focused on student learning and achievement, student friendliness within the classroom, and student friendliness outside the classroom. Students were assigned one of four different methods to use during lecture for one content unit while data was collected through surveys, assessments, observations, and student interviews. Results showed that while the method of note-taking had little to no impact on student learning, digital and digital, outlined notes were the least student-friendly in and out of the classroom.