Group note-taking can ease that anxiety, and it’s a great way to help students explore multiple perspectives on the lesson, as each group member brings unique thoughts and prior knowledge. It also helps students critically discuss the course material and prioritize the content so the notes are more useful when studying for assessments. Here are three techniques for group note-taking that can work in remote and face-to-face classroom settings.

Note-taking Pairs 

This technique assigns pairs to work together during class to improve their notes. The first step is giving students time and encouragement to take notes during class. It is a good idea for instructors to provide handouts or copies of slides before class to ease students’ cognitive load and give them a structure for their notes. In a face-to-face class, students  can be assigned a partner or choose their own partner, preferably someone sitting close by. For remote teaching environments, Zoom breakout rooms are an easy way to divide the class into groups of two. If instructors use note-taking pairs frequently, they may want to pre-assign pairs so that the same students consistently work together. This will help the pair build a relationship and better rapport, and the pair breakouts can be re-used repeatedly during the class session. 

Here are sample instructions for pairs to follow:

1. Partner A begins by summarizing the main points from a section of their notes, perhaps one or two slides worth. Partner B offers corrections and additional information.

2. Partner B summarizes the next section; partner A offers corrections and additional information. 

3. Partners continue to alternate sharing summaries, corrections, and additional information until they have worked through all the notes. 

Instructors may want to wait until the start of the next class to do this activity so students have a chance to review and reflect on their own notes before meeting with their partners, but the exercise is also effective if done in several smaller stages during a class period.

Team Concept Maps 

Concept maps—such as flow charts, spider maps, or time lines—allow students to draw a visual representation of their understanding of complex concepts, procedures, or processes. For example, biology students learning about viral cell replication in lecture may find sketching a flow chart of the process to be a helpful way to organize and better understand it. Team concept maps, then, allow groups of students to collectively synthesize their understanding and organize ideas into a meaningful graphic. If each group is working with the same content, groups can also compare and contrast their mind maps, to reach a shared understanding across the whole class. In face-to-face classes, students can work on paper or on whiteboards. An excellent variation is to provide students with sticky notes—one idea per note. That way, students can move the graphic points around with ease. Group members can take a photo of the completed graphic to use as a study aid. For students meeting in Zoom breakout rooms, they can use the Zoom whiteboard feature to sketch their graphic. Another option is to use Google Diagrams or PowerPoint.

Here is a sample process for the exercise:

1. Choose an important or challenging process, procedure, or concept for students to map, one that they will need to understand for the course’s assessments.

2. Decide what students will use as a shared workspace, such as a Zoom whiteboard or markers and flip charts.

3. Lecture on, describe, or demonstrate the process you want students to graph.

4. Suggest to the students a graphic organization/template that best captures the relationships of the concept (e.g. fishbone, flow chart, timeline, network tree).

5. Form groups and instruct students to brainstorm for a few minutes about which terms are most important in the concept.

6. Groups should move outward from the central idea or first step in the process, adding words, images, and phrases that are connected by lines or arrows.

7. Allow time for groups to report out and share their graphics with other groups, so the whole class benefits from everyone’s work.

When students create concept maps to show conceptual networks, they are learning to organize complex information into a meaningful schemata by starting with higher level concepts. Concepts maps can also provide a powerful study aid for recall and to prepare for assessments.

Analytical Teams

Analytical teams is a technique that works well when students are tasked with critically reading a text, listening to a lecture, or watching a video. This activity involves each group member taking on a different aspect of the critical thinking process. The roles should be determined by what elements the instructor wants to direct student attention to. For example, a history class might be assigned to watch All Quiet on the Western Front, a fictional story of WW1 from a soldier’s perspective. Group members could be assigned a different area of focus to keep in mind when viewing the film. Student One might focus on the influence of patriotic propaganda and presentation of authority figures. Student Two might focus on the impact of technological advances such as poison gas and airplanes on trench warfare. Student Three might look for how civilians are characterized, and what political perspective that suggests. And Student Four might focus on what the film says about the international perspective of the US in the 1930’s.

Here is a sample process for the exercise:

1. Form groups of 4 or 5 students; assign roles to the students before presenting the material.

2. Present the material, whether in-class or as homework. For an online class, it is strongly recommended to use homework time rather than class time.

3. Give teams class time to share their findings with each other and to work together to prepare an oral and/or written synthesis of their analysis.

4. Allow each group some time to report out, and point out connections to the previous groups’ analyses as you go.

The best place to begin with analytical teams is to select a challenging assignment that requires complex critical thinking and allows for multiple focus roles. The key is to make sure each role will be engaging and allow all students to fully participate.

If you’d like to discuss how to use group note-taking activities in your courses, please feel free to reach out to the [email protected], or request a consultation here. We’ll be happy to help you put together exercises that will best help your students achieve the course goals!

References

Barkley, E. (2010). Student engagement techniques. Jossey-Bass.

Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed). International Reading Association.

Bui, D, & Myerson, J. (2014). The role of working memory abilities in lecture note-taking. Learning and individual differences, 33, 12–22. Elsevier Inc.