Why Do Students Take Notes?

Taking notes in school seems like an accepted practice.  Teachers accept they will give have to give them and students accept they will be bored while writing them.

While writing blog I did a Google search and found a 15 year old girl and she had written a list of things to do instead of taking notes.  Here are her top 20.

1. Sleep
2. Talk

3. write notes to friends

4. SLEEP

5. draw

6. daydream

7. play footsy

8. carve holes in the desk

9. make a series of wierd noises

10. mock the teacher

11. make scribble drawings

12. draw random things (birds, worms, clouds..etc) in your book

13. fake sick and roam the school

14. get into "fake" fights

15. burst out into tears hysterically.."im having a break down"

16. ask unrelated questions

17. stare cross eyed into space and if anyone asks you say your trying to think

18. put tacks on ppl's chairs before they sit down.

19. try to figure out whats wrong with one of your friends

20. SLEEP

After reading this list or being in a class where students take notes it is clear to realize students are not highly engaged in the learning process if all they are doing is copying notes, so why is it such an accepted practice?

Myths about note-taking

1.  Students take notes because they have to learn how to be ready for high school or  college.  Our job as educators should never be to teach students to become "good at school."  When we have students copy words from a whiteboard or PowerPoint are we teaching them skills they will need outside the walls of our current school?  Are we really even teaching them a skill they will need for college?  The way students think and learn has changed with new technologies below is an example of how many students take notes.

2.  Students take notes because 'research' shows that when students write something down they remember it for a longer time than if they just hear it.  

I completely agree with this statement and know first hand if I write something down I have a better chance of remembering it than if I don't.  But if all we are doing is asking students to write something down to remember it, is that the best we can do?  Notes today should be shared electronically, if districts have the capability, via Google Docs or other applications.  If your district does not have those capabilities simply printing out the notes will be a huge time saver in your class.

3. Students take notes because teachers have always done it this way and don't know another way to deliver the content.  Most teachers teach the way they were taught and yes that means copying down notes.  Teachers need to be shown and taught alternative ways to deliver content than merely copying it from the board in the front of the room.  Teachers want to what is best for kids but when they have spent so many years in education some practices seem like second nature.

Once we accept that merely copying notes from the board is not an acceptable practice we start to change the way a classroom is run and this is perhaps the scariest part.  If you aren't giving students notes to copy from the board, what do you replace that time and delivery method with?