Guided Notes

Category: Notemaking

Grade Level: Grade 7 to 12

1. What is the purpose of Guided Notes?

Guided notes are a type of advance organizer designed to help the student attend to, and organize, key points in lectures.

2. With whom can they be used?

Because the amount and type of information included in guided notes can vary, they can be used with any Junior High or High School student, regardless of the student's skill level or the subject matter.

3. What teaching procedures should be used with Guided Notes?

Guided notes are a notetaking strategy in which the teacher provides the student with a

structured outline of a class lecture or topic. The outline is a skeleton outline containing the main ideas of a lecture, with spaces for students to complete as the lecture occurs. As the teacher presents the material, the student follows along with the outline, filling in missing words or writing important points.

Guided notes containing the least amount of information (for example, main ideas or key

concepts only) provide the student with greater opportunity to respond. However, teachers may develop their own guided notes to contain as much information as is necessary to compensate for students' skill deficits. These are best created by deriving information from existing lecture notes.

The outline provided by the teacher might include:

a list of key terms;

definitions of key terms;

short summaries of major concepts; and

comprehension questions that the student is required to answer after taking notes.

Visual cues (e.g., blanks, alphabet letters, and labels) convey the amount and type of information to record.

During or immediately following lectures, teachers should review the notes with students to ensure that they have been completed accurately.

4. In what types of settings should Guided Notes be used?

Guided notes can be effectively used in all classrooms where students are required to take lecture notes. While they place increasing demands on the teacher, they can quite easily be developed at the same time that the related lesson is prepared. Compensatory strategies such as guided notes aid the teacher in adapting curriculum and materials to enhance the success of learning disabled students in the regular classroom. While the needs of these students should dictate the amount of information contained in the notes, providing guided notes for the whole class is recommended.

5. To what extent has research shown Guided Notes to be useful?

Research has shown that students miss 50% or more of the main ideas presented during lectures, and that students who record and review personal lecture notes score higher on tests than do students who only listen to the lecture. Guided notes have been found to be superior to the traditional procedure of having students take their own notes during whole class lectures. They aid in retention, can be used across a variety of subject areas, serve to signal the main points of the chapter or topic, and can increase students’ opportunities to respond. Furthermore, the use of guided notes results in improvements in students' levels of active participation and achievement in class. They are particularly beneficial for students with learning disabilities who might lack the listening, comprehension, motor, or attention skills necessary for notetaking.

References

  1. Bulgren, J. A., Schumaker, J. B., & Deshler, D. D. (1994). The effects of a recall enhancement routine on the test performance of secondary students with and without learning disabilities. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 9, 2-11.
  2. Einstein, G. O., Morris, J., & Smith, S. (1985). Note-taking, individual differences and memory for lecture information. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 522-532.
  3. Lazarus, B. D. (1996). Flexible skeletons: Guided notes for adolescents. Teaching Exceptional Children, 28, 36-40.
  4. Shields, J. M., & Heron, T. E. (1989). Teaching organizational skills to students with learning disabilities. Teaching Exceptional Children, 21, 8-13.
  5. Sweeney, W. J., Ehrhardt, A. M., Gardner, R., Jones, L., Greenfield, R., & Fribley, S. (1999). Using guided notes with academically at-risk high school students during a remedial summer social studies class. Psychology in the Schools, 36, 305-318.

Reviewed by: Lesley Daniels