Here’s what I needed: A student note-taking method that could work equally well while we meet synchronously and when they work independently during their asynchronous time. I didn’t want it to be cumbersome for them to use. I wanted it to have a clear structure for those who are still building their thought-organizing skills. I wanted there to be potential for collaborative note taking. And I wanted to be able to check on their note-taking progress at any time.
The solution…?
If you’re thinking Google docs, you’re not alone; so was I. And we tried that. And it worked relatively well, but it started getting unruly as our notes grew. And for those students without the technical skill or motivation to clean up hierarchical bulleted lists, things were getting messy. For some students the notes were getting messy to the point that they were becoming inefficient and not particularly useful.
I landed instead on a less conventional solution: Concept mapping. There are many services out there (Coggle, mindomo, Miro, and others), all of which have their benefits. I settled on MindMeister (MeisterLabs), probably the most well known of the online mind mapping tools. I don’t consider it a home run, as it is missing a few features I would like (If anyone knows of a service that allows easy switching between outline view and concept map view, get in touch!). However, this article isn’t a review of MindMeister, and it is generally working just fine.
By taking reading notes, lecture notes, video-watching notes with this tool, students’ work is kept organized for them (and for me) but the benefits are so much more.
Sample Student notes using concept mapping tool MindMeister
Cognitively, when students take notes in a mind mapping tool they are engaging in metacognition in ways that are hard to match with traditional linear note-taking. They see the relationships between ideas and are encouraged to literally link new concepts to existing ones from previous content. The visual aspects of this are a sort of dual coding of information, shown to improve recall and depth of understanding.
In an online or hybrid teaching environment, this method also deepens the Cognitive Presence of the educational experience (in popular the Community of Inquiry by helping students not only record ideas but also connect those ideas together.
In terms of the Community of Inquiry model’s social presence, the tool itself doesn’t enhance the social presence, but with the method my students are using, social presence can be improved more readily than traditional note-taking: In addition to taking their individual notes, I have students collaborate in small groups on a rotating basis each week to be in charge of curating a “perfect” set of class notes for the week. They compare the notes they have each taken, select the best, combine ideas, to generate the master notes document for the class, with an audience of students who have been absent, are struggling, or for future sections of the course.
This technique crosses the transformation threshold of the SAMR model. It sits squarely in the Modification level due to the significant redesign of traditional note-taking methods. When used to include embedded images, videos, and links, this note-taking tool also extents into the Redefinition level of the SAMR model; note-taking in such a format is simply not possible in traditional paper and pencil notes.
Note taking through a concept mapping system is a worthwhile endeavor. This method allows students to better organize their thoughts, to see relationships between ideas forming before their eyes, and to engage more deeply with the content they are learning.
References
MeisterLabs. (n.d.). Online Mind Mapping and Brainstorming. Retrieved January 01, 2021, from https://www.mindmeister.com/