The Benefits of Visual Note Taking in the Classroom
We love teaching our students various note taking strategies throughout the year. We even have some awesome graphic organizers that we sell on all the different types of note taking that we teach.
One type of note taking that we have found super beneficial is visual note taking. We like to call them Doodle Notes. They are often also called Sketch Notes. There are many theories surrounding why visual note taking works so well for students. One such theory is the Dual Coding Theory. The Dual Coding Theory started to gain traction in the 1970s when Alan Paivio, a professor of psychology at the University of Ontario, suggested that the brain processes information through two channels: visual and verbal. When both words and images are used to take notes, your whole brain is utilized. You hear and synthesize the information through listening, seeing, thinking, and drawing.
Why visual note taking rocks!
Sketch noting is a holistic approach to taking notes, as it uses the whole brain and body. Because you are using your whole brain, you understand and retain the information. When your brain and your body work together, you can recall more of what you hear and draw. Sketch noting also helps those students who often lose focus or become unengaged from the lesson. It requires active listening and problem solving. Last, sketch notes or doodle notes help students to focus on the larger themes of a text or lesson. So often when we ask students to take notes they fill their page with every word ever spoken by an author. They have a hard time determining what is important. With sketch notes, students listen for the themes and big ideas of the lesson. Those are the ideas that they capture through images.
What are some resources if we want to use sketch notes in our own classrooms?
Covering all of the reading standards for middle school can be tough; knowing what to teach for each standard is also hard. We have created some really fun and interactive doodle notes for students on both the informational and literature reading standards for middle school classrooms. Our doodle notes provide a scaffolded approach to teaching each standard. We have a completed document in which students preview the standard while coloring the page. We also have included the same page without the wording so students can use the document to take notes on the standard or use the blank template to take notes on another piece of text. We think they’re pretty great!
We also love these books on how to incorporate sketch notes into your classroom:
Sketchnote Handbook: The Illustrated Guide to Visual Note Taking by Mike Rohde
The Doodle Revolution: Unlock the Power to Think Differently by Sunni Brown
Fifty Strategies to Boost Cognitive Engagement: Creating a Thinking Culture in the Classroom (50 Teaching Strategies to Support Cognitive Development) by Rebecca Stobaugh
One strategy we have had a lot of success with is having our students complete sketch notes when listening to their peers’ oral presentations. We find that it keeps them engaged and actively listening to their fellow classmates. We hope you have great success when trying out this awesome style of note taking in your classroom.
Happy Teaching!