Is Digital Note Taking more Effective?

The digital era is upon us, what does that mean for the future of education? Many schools are choosing to become completely digitally converted providing students with their own personal I-Pads and other digital devices. With the digital conversion taking over will students be required to take digital notes? What does the mean for test scores?

These are the specific questions I looked to answer during my action research project. I joined a digitally converted school for my student teaching experience and was pressed with the challenge of including technology in the classroom. Coming from a high school that still required teachers to sign out computer carts I was thrown a little out of my element. With a little warming up to the idea of students utilizing technology on a daily occurrence in the classroom I found that I truly enjoyed it. I was intrigued by how students chose to use their I-Pads to organize and take notes. Certain classes are already requiring that students keep their notes digitally so the teacher can view and grade them. Through student conversations it sounded that there was a mixed feeling on keeping digital notes. This is why I set out to find answers through my research project. 

Utilizing a group of students who currently are required to take digital notes in other classes I looked at several factors. I would give students a survey at the beginning and end of a unit to develop an understanding for their preferences on digital note taking and note taking in general. I utilized survey monkey to compile information. Through the survey I found that in general 80% of those students agreed or strongly agreed that they used their notes to study before a test. Of that same group of students 46.67% of students responded that they prefer to take notes digitally while 26.67% strongly disagreed with using their I-Pads to take notes. 

Taking this research a step further I developed an exam for two units that reflected the same level of rigor to be given to the same group of students. For both unit I required students to take notes as part of their grade, however for one unit students were required to take traditional notes in a notebook while the other I required them to take fully digital notes. Upon the completion of both units I found that when the students were required to take traditional notes they scored 6% higher. 

My conclusion was that students tend to score higher when required to take traditional notes apposed to digital notes. However, there are may influences that could have effected the outcome. If I were to improve this study I would find two groups of students completing the same exact unit. This would ensure the same level of rigor in the content was being taught and students would be taking the same unit exam. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rising Stars At Central Columbia High School

Image
Supervised Agricultural Experiences (SAE) are an important entity to agricultural education. As I mentioned in previous blogs a true agricultural education program is comprised of three very important components; Classroom/ laboratory instruction, FFA, and SAE. SAEs are programs created by students to explore their interests in a specific agricultural area. These programs allow for a hands, on real world experience, while developing life skills. Students can choose one of six different SAE areas to develop their program around. “An SAE is a catalyst for personal growth, career development, and responsible citizenship that leads to individual, group and societal benefits not possible through formal education alone” (“Jig Saw.”2005) SAE is truly a unique aspect of agricultural education, allowing students be creative and cultivate their own learning. Students at Central Columbia High School in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania are doing just that, developing programs that are pushing  them outs
Read more

Developing a Team

Image
Forming, Storming, Norming , and Performing , where are we at in the process of student teaching? I took some time this week to reflect on our studies this past fall. We learned about Bruce Tuckman's model and discussed how the model would look in our future classrooms. We discussed how these are the stages to making an effective team, my team may seem a little different than maybe a sports team, never the less my students, my cooperating teachers, university supervisors, and myself make a great team. As my time at Central Columbia is coming to a close here in a just a few short weeks I found it only fitting to take a look back at how far we have come over the last 13 weeks.  Forming: While we started forming long before the first day of student teaching, the majority of events took place during my first few weeks of student teaching. The first few weeks were pretty laid back, all of my students were polite and well behaved, still trying to figure out how to act arou
Read more

The Final Act: Who Do I Aspire to be as an Educator?

Image
On the journey to becoming an agricultural educator each student is required to complete a 15 week student teaching internship. During those 15 weeks we will work with a cooperating agricultural educator at that school. In order for each individual student and cooperating teacher to have the best experience possible it is important that each of us create a positive connection prior to student teaching. One way Mr. Curt Turner and I are working to establish our working relationship is through reading  Juggling Elephants   by Jones Loflin and Todd Musig .  Just as there is more to the ring master than a long red coat and a top hat, there is much to be said about an agricultural educator beyond the lab coat. The last few chapter of “Juggling Elephants” really had me saying “yes!” this is the kind of teacher I want to be. I will challenge myself to be the master of three very important rings (the three-circle model that is). While I am still trying to figure out who exactly I want t
Read more