Using Cornell Notes to Help Students Process and Synthesize New Knowledge
Karen A. McCay
28 January 2017
Introduction:
Teachers can use many advance organizers to help students utilize prior knowledge at the beginning of a lesson, make strong connections as they learn new knowledge, and then synthesize that new knowledge into their framework of existing learning with better success. A very successful strategy for doing so, which is strongly supported by research, is Cornell Notes. Cornell Notes, used by AVID schools, help students to organize information and access their metacognitive processes as they learn to ensure that they challenge themselves and engage at a high level throughout the lesson, mastering material the first time through.
Reflect Back to Prior Knowledge
Students begin most lessons by reviewing their Cornell Notes from the previous lesson to ensure that they recall their prior learning before moving onto new learning. The purpose is to recall that learning, to reflect on yesterday’s essential question, to reflect on the significance of yesterday’s implications in the real-world, and to have present in students’ minds how that learning might apply as we move forward today. This recall step helps students as they move forward.
Make Quick Connections to Learning Objectives and Predict Answers to Essential Questions
The next step is to create a Cornell Notes template for today’s learning (see a sample below). Students organize a template with today’s topic, learning objective, and essential question. Then students can make quick connections from yesterday’s learning to today’s topic. To ensure that students understand the connections between these topics, teachers might conduct a brief discussion, assign a quick write, allow KWL+ diagramming, or assign journal time. Any assignment, which allows teachers to formatively assess students’ developing synthesis would be appropriate during this step.
Take Notes
In the next step students take their initial notes and then interact with those notes in dynamic ways to organize them. Cornell Notes are designed for students to take their notes and then after the information-giving process is complete, for students to organize that information into a pattern, which is most meaningful to individual students. Michael C. Friedman explains the most recent research on note-taking and reviewing notes prior to assessment: “The most important issue associated with reviewing notes is how to optimally review and better retain content. The largest factor associated with optimal review is for the learner to transform their notes in some interactive way, rather than simply reading or copying their notes” (2013). When students physically synthesize their notes, in other words, they retain them. Each student might chunk or organize notes in a variety of unique ways. As long as the notes are meaningful, then the organization has served its purpose.
Write Questions and Investigate
Students can increase their mastery of new content and deepen their engagement even further in the next step of the Cornell note-taking process, when they write questions in the left-hand margin of their template and investigate meaningful answers to their own questions. These questions should not be low-level, factual questions with easy answers, but rather, deeply engaging, complex questions with challenging, debatable answers. Claire Brown suggests that the best questions even engage students in debates about the note-taking process, itself: “They must also be thinking about the thinking (metacognition) involved in engaging with the material. This means that, while students are learning the content, they should also be thinking about how they are learning it. What is causing confusion? How does your thinking change about this topic as you are learning? What has worked well for you in learning this topic that you should do next time? What hasn’t worked so well so you don’t make that learning mistake again” (2016)? When students start questioning even their own learning processes, they are engaging at the deepest levels with their new concepts, and they will remember both what they learned and how they learned it.
Reflect and Summarize
During the final step, students reflect over the entire process. They can either summarize the skills they learned, or they can reflect over the significance of what they learned, depending upon what the teacher prefers. Both tasks are important and demand high levels of writing at the end of the assignment. This entire process demands that students use their prior knowledge, their metacognitive processes, and a high level of engagement to master new content and use that content at increasingly deeper levels until they master it entirely. It is no surprise that Cornell Notes increase learning outcomes. “A study by Wichita State University in 2008 showed that when students switched to using Cornell Notes, on average their scores increased by 17% and these same students had a significantly easier time answering critical thinking questions” (Clark, 2013). The entire process requires students to think more critically about not only their learning, but also how they are learning it.
For Administrators
In transition years, we cannot possibly predict how many educational changes we will face as teachers and administrators. We do know, regardless of changing politics, that we always have changing initiatives. Principals can plan for effective changes each year by providing strong professional development and follow-up trainings for their teachers, which help their teachers interact with new knowledge so they master new skills more effectively and more efficiently than if they were left to their own devices. Adults need chances to deepen and practice, too. They need authentic learning through collaboration with their peers in order to synthesize new concepts into a framework of existing knowledge. If principals want to face future changes with less stress, they will prepare timely development modules based on their new initiatives, and they will also provide effective follow-up opportunities for the rest of the year, which supplement and reinforce those trainings for their staff members to ensure that the new knowledge becomes a strength to build on the next year when change will surely continue.
Back to Best Practices
Back to Relationship Teaching Home Page
More Resources:
A Cornell Notes Template
A How-To Video on Taking Cornell Notes in Biology Class
A Quick Video on the Essentials of Cornell Note-Taking
A Great Resource on Middle School Reading and How Cornell Notes Can Help
References
Brown, C. (2016, March 24). The ‘Cornell Note-Taking System’ Is Most Effective Way to Take Notes ((Bit of News) Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://news.bitofnews.com/the-most-effective-way-to-take-notes/
Clark, A. (2013, May 21). How Using Cornell Notes Can Increase Grades (Educational Coaching). Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://ectutoring.com/cornell-notes-increase-grades
Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. J. (2012). Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, 2nd Edition. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Friedman, M. C. (2013). Notes on Note-Taking: Review of Research and Insights for Students and Instructors [PDF]. Cambridge: Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching.
Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. R. (2013). The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Karen A. McCay
28 January 2017
Introduction:
Teachers can use many advance organizers to help students utilize prior knowledge at the beginning of a lesson, make strong connections as they learn new knowledge, and then synthesize that new knowledge into their framework of existing learning with better success. A very successful strategy for doing so, which is strongly supported by research, is Cornell Notes. Cornell Notes, used by AVID schools, help students to organize information and access their metacognitive processes as they learn to ensure that they challenge themselves and engage at a high level throughout the lesson, mastering material the first time through.
Reflect Back to Prior Knowledge
Students begin most lessons by reviewing their Cornell Notes from the previous lesson to ensure that they recall their prior learning before moving onto new learning. The purpose is to recall that learning, to reflect on yesterday’s essential question, to reflect on the significance of yesterday’s implications in the real-world, and to have present in students’ minds how that learning might apply as we move forward today. This recall step helps students as they move forward.
Make Quick Connections to Learning Objectives and Predict Answers to Essential Questions
The next step is to create a Cornell Notes template for today’s learning (see a sample below). Students organize a template with today’s topic, learning objective, and essential question. Then students can make quick connections from yesterday’s learning to today’s topic. To ensure that students understand the connections between these topics, teachers might conduct a brief discussion, assign a quick write, allow KWL+ diagramming, or assign journal time. Any assignment, which allows teachers to formatively assess students’ developing synthesis would be appropriate during this step.
Take Notes
In the next step students take their initial notes and then interact with those notes in dynamic ways to organize them. Cornell Notes are designed for students to take their notes and then after the information-giving process is complete, for students to organize that information into a pattern, which is most meaningful to individual students. Michael C. Friedman explains the most recent research on note-taking and reviewing notes prior to assessment: “The most important issue associated with reviewing notes is how to optimally review and better retain content. The largest factor associated with optimal review is for the learner to transform their notes in some interactive way, rather than simply reading or copying their notes” (2013). When students physically synthesize their notes, in other words, they retain them. Each student might chunk or organize notes in a variety of unique ways. As long as the notes are meaningful, then the organization has served its purpose.
Write Questions and Investigate
Students can increase their mastery of new content and deepen their engagement even further in the next step of the Cornell note-taking process, when they write questions in the left-hand margin of their template and investigate meaningful answers to their own questions. These questions should not be low-level, factual questions with easy answers, but rather, deeply engaging, complex questions with challenging, debatable answers. Claire Brown suggests that the best questions even engage students in debates about the note-taking process, itself: “They must also be thinking about the thinking (metacognition) involved in engaging with the material. This means that, while students are learning the content, they should also be thinking about how they are learning it. What is causing confusion? How does your thinking change about this topic as you are learning? What has worked well for you in learning this topic that you should do next time? What hasn’t worked so well so you don’t make that learning mistake again” (2016)? When students start questioning even their own learning processes, they are engaging at the deepest levels with their new concepts, and they will remember both what they learned and how they learned it.
Reflect and Summarize
During the final step, students reflect over the entire process. They can either summarize the skills they learned, or they can reflect over the significance of what they learned, depending upon what the teacher prefers. Both tasks are important and demand high levels of writing at the end of the assignment. This entire process demands that students use their prior knowledge, their metacognitive processes, and a high level of engagement to master new content and use that content at increasingly deeper levels until they master it entirely. It is no surprise that Cornell Notes increase learning outcomes. “A study by Wichita State University in 2008 showed that when students switched to using Cornell Notes, on average their scores increased by 17% and these same students had a significantly easier time answering critical thinking questions” (Clark, 2013). The entire process requires students to think more critically about not only their learning, but also how they are learning it.
For Administrators
In transition years, we cannot possibly predict how many educational changes we will face as teachers and administrators. We do know, regardless of changing politics, that we always have changing initiatives. Principals can plan for effective changes each year by providing strong professional development and follow-up trainings for their teachers, which help their teachers interact with new knowledge so they master new skills more effectively and more efficiently than if they were left to their own devices. Adults need chances to deepen and practice, too. They need authentic learning through collaboration with their peers in order to synthesize new concepts into a framework of existing knowledge. If principals want to face future changes with less stress, they will prepare timely development modules based on their new initiatives, and they will also provide effective follow-up opportunities for the rest of the year, which supplement and reinforce those trainings for their staff members to ensure that the new knowledge becomes a strength to build on the next year when change will surely continue.
Back to Best Practices
Back to Relationship Teaching Home Page
More Resources:
A Cornell Notes Template
A How-To Video on Taking Cornell Notes in Biology Class
A Quick Video on the Essentials of Cornell Note-Taking
A Great Resource on Middle School Reading and How Cornell Notes Can Help
References
Brown, C. (2016, March 24). The ‘Cornell Note-Taking System’ Is Most Effective Way to Take Notes ((Bit of News) Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://news.bitofnews.com/the-most-effective-way-to-take-notes/
Clark, A. (2013, May 21). How Using Cornell Notes Can Increase Grades (Educational Coaching). Retrieved January 29, 2017, from http://ectutoring.com/cornell-notes-increase-grades
Dean, C. B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H., & Stone, B. J. (2012). Classroom Instruction that Works: Research-Based Strategies for Increasing Student Achievement, 2nd Edition. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.
Friedman, M. C. (2013). Notes on Note-Taking: Review of Research and Insights for Students and Instructors [PDF]. Cambridge: Harvard Initiative for Learning and Teaching.
Goodwin, B., & Hubbell, E. R. (2013). The 12 Touchstones of Good Teaching: A Checklist for Staying Focused Every Day. Alexandria, VA: ASCD.