Week 7 at Shea

I thought Erin’s lesson about Self Monitoring was very effective and well received by students. We did an activity with three different sets of notes describing how to create a paper airplane. One set was too detailed, another set was messy and another had a succinct, good description. Students with the neat set of notes made a successful paper airplane, students with the too detailed set of notes made an accurate airplane but had a harder time getting through each step, and the group with the messy notes which were not clear enough did not even create an accurate plane. This activity was a good way to show students both the correct and incorrect way to take notes. We then split into groups and described our own as well as each student’s method of note-taking and tactics to use one’s notes when studying for a test. We looked at students’ notebooks to further demonstrate their tactics when taking notes – most bulleted their notes or numbered steps in order to organize the material in an effective way. I thought that giving students advice on how to note take and study was a very useful skill for them to use both currently in high school and in their futures in college. EXPLORE volunteers made this connection for students and explained that in college many courses are lecture style or use powerpoints and therefore you must prepare for each class in a different way. Students really seemed receptive to this lesson and were open in sharing their personal methods to the entire group.