WHY VISUAL NOTETAKING? Students learn in a myriad of ways. VISUAL NOTETAKING engages the students' minds by using the upper levels of Bloom's Taxonomy: Apply, Analyze, Evaluate, and Create. It allows students to process ideas in a fun and creative way and keeps the brain actively engaged. Visual identifiers may help boost memory as an added bonus. WHAT I DO: In all of my first year undergraduate classes I employ Visual Notetaking. This year I lectured on Thucydides in one class and the Apology in the other. I asked my students to work on their Notetaking for a week after the lecture and their assignments were to be turned in just before their mid-term exam. I do think that it helped prepare them for their exam. I AM JUST THRILLED WITH THE RESULTS!! The students did such an amazing job - see some of the images below. The image above is way beyond what I expected! If you are interested in the section of the Apology that I teach, and if you would like to see more examples of student Notetaking, you will find my Apology unit here: Perfect Pairing #1: SOCRATES AND THE INSANITY DEFENSE. REGARDING MARKING: The marking of Visual Notetaking is fairly easy to do compared to marking an essay, for instance. I grade my students on their creativity, on their ability to make connections between ideas, on understanding the lecture, on editing down the lecture to crucial information, and on aesthetics. You will find my guide to Visual Notetaking here: Visual Notetaking STUDENT FEEDBACK: The results speak for themselves. Most of my students threw themselves into the assignment and my exam grades were higher overall. Here are four more examples - one from my lecture on Thucydides, one from Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and one from Plato's Apology: Have a look at my latest post on Visual Notetaking: Visual Notetaking Addendum THANKS FOR VISITING!
