1

Introducing Student Note-Taking; Cornell Notes, Note Revising and Reviewing

Caroline Adduci

Manhattan College

Education 403 Reading in Content Area Secondary Education

Sister Mary Ann

April 23, 2020

Abstract
 2

Sitting in the back of Ms. Sticklor's 10th grade English Language Arts classroom at the

Academy of Mount Saint Ursula gives you the opportunity to see what every single student is

doing during class. The class routine consists of Ms.Sticklor utilizing a powerpoint to teach

about a book or an author the class is learning about. The powerpoint is about plot points,

characters, themes, and some literary devices. Right away I noticed that no students were taking

notes nor were they using their laptops to follow along with the lecture. Then weeks later when

students were tested on the material they did poorly on the exams. In order to do well on exams,

the material from the lectures and powerpoints needs to be memorized and comprehended which

student note-taking will accomplish. Although I was not able to enact it students were going to

be taught the note-taking method of Cornell notes to be used during the lecture, then students

would review and revise. I hypothesized that exam scores would increase. Exams test student

comprehension and allow the teacher to determine if they are doing a good job having students

master the material. Studies found support the argument that note-taking and note reviewing

helps improve comprehension.

Key Words:Note-taking, Cornell notes, Advancement Placement, Revising, Reviewing

What was the problem?

Note-taking is an essential reading strategy for every single subject and college readiness.

It is especially important during a lecture because there's no other way to retain the information

than to write it down. Note-taking is not just copying down what is on the powerpoint but instead

students rewriting the information in their own words. Students should be able to decipher what

information is important and what information is not. Being able to lecture students and it being

effective is a college level skill, which should have been mastered for students in an Advanced

Placement course. The information students are taught is what they will be tested on and notes

from these lectures can be reviewed for a test with the goal of improving test scores. Students in

Ms.Sticklors class struggled with basic background knowledge of the class curriculum because

they never took notes during the powerpoint lectures. This negatively affected their grades and

content knowledge.

What did the teacher know?

Before I planned on implementing my action research plan I observed Mount Saint

Ursula Academy for multiple weeks just observing classroom nature to make sure I understood

how to address the problem and research. Mount Saint Ursula Academy is a Catholic all girls

school in the Bronx. I observed two 10th grade classes and one Advanced Placement 11th grade

class. These classes were drastically different but all had one thing in common, no student took

notes during the lecture. My action research focuses specifically on the Advanced Placement

11th grade class. Before observing I was told by a friend who had attended the academy that

Ms.Sticklors students get really high scores on the Advanced Placement exam, thus I was

surprised when no students took notes. When Ms.Sticklor was presenting, students would be

using their laptops. Since I was positioned in the back of the room I was able to see that not one

student using their laptop was following along with the powerpoint lecture or taking notes.
 4

Instead, the majority of students were playing games. At the time I was observing the class was

learning about Virginia Woolf and the novel Mrs. Dalloway. Ms.Sticklor would give them a

powerpoint about Woolf's life and a brief overview of the book to give context. I was able to see

on two occasions students did not do well on a test and on an in-class informal quizz. She gave a

Kahoot (an online interactive quiz) that served as a pre-assessment for an upcoming test students

had. The Kahoot consisted of questions asking about the setting of Mrs. Dalloway, the emotions

of a certain character or literary devices used within the novel. Multiple times a student would

get a question wrong, be shown the right answer and then say comments such as “I knew that!”

or “I almost choose that!”. Showing that students know the right answers because they were

taught the material but the information has not been fully comprehended or memorized. The next

week Ms. Sticklor informed me that the students did not do well on the test about Mrs.Dalloway

even though Ms.Sticklor gave all the needed information to get a good grade in her powerpoint

lecture. The root of the problem was that Ms.Sticklor never gave her students instructions to take

notes nor she did not make an effort to ensure students were taking notes in a way that would

benefit them.

What had others found?

prove its benefits. Looking at multiple studies about note-taking in the education setting it

becomes evident Ms.Sticklors students are not obtaining the most information they could due to

not taking notes and being distracted by laptops. Apart from having students taking notes is

removing all distractions and this means the laptops. Students should be using a notebook to take

notes instead of a laptop according to a study published by the Physical Science Newsletter. The

study took 67 students from Princeton and they had the choice of using a notebook or a laptop to

take notes on 5 different Ted Talk lectures (Mueller et al., 2014). After that, the student would be
 5

given two separate 5 minute distraction tests that required them to use their working memory.

Participants then would be tested on the lecture by being asked factual recall questions or

conceptual application questions. The researchers found that handwritten note-takers retained

more information and scored better on the test. Researchers also found that laptop note-takers

wrote down the lecture word for word compared to handwriting note-takers that translated it into

their own words. When a student writes down words exactly as they hear there is not a lot of

thinking going on, instead it's just copying. Compared to when you handwrite notes people tend

to rewrite it in their own words. Thus having to think about the information, comprehend it and

write it in a new way. A limitation of this study was that it was only a video they had to watch

and not an actual teacher presenting (Mueller et al., 2014).

A study published by the American Journal of Psychology did a study on note-taking and

memory. Note-taking and memory go hand in hand because for students to really comprehend

the material they need to remember it. This is demonstrated within this study. The study focused

on 97 college students, testing note-taking and note-reviewing in relation to memory. The

students all read two texts and only half were allowed to take notes. The group that was allowed

to take notes scored better on the 15 question multiple choice quiz on the readings. On top of that

a week later the people who were allowed to review their notes did better on the second quiz

(Bohay et al., 2011). This study can easily be applied to a classroom because when students take

notes they will do better memorizing it, thus better on the day's activities. Reviewing notes is

proven to help memory and comprehension too. A limitation to this study is that when the

participants took the second quiz they could have researched the information before the quiz,

thus it was not a controlled environment (Bohay et al., 2011).

Now that its determined handwriting notes help students memorize material, the question

remains, what kind of notes? In my research, I found a study that proved graphic organizers help

students take better notes and memorize them more effectively. The study took 114 students who

were split into two groups. One group was given the lecture notes and the graphic organizer

already filled out with information while the other was given a graphic organizer with some

notes in it but they had to fill in the rest. This lasted 15 weeks and the students were given a test

about 6 items in the course. Students who had to fill out the graphic organizer scored better on

the test. Another experiment was done with the same students but an online version and the

results were consistent with the first experiment (Robinson et al., 2006). A limitation to these

was that groups kept sharing information between them which made the results unreliable. In

order to help with this the researchers did a 3rd experiment with 110 students enrolled in the

same class but one course was taught over the summer and the other over the fall. Another

difference in experiment 3 was a pretext given to the participants to see how much they knew

about the topic (Robinson et al., 2006). One course was dedicated to giving students filled out

graphic organizers and the other one not filled out graphic organizers. After taking a 30 multiple

choice test the evidence showed the students who were not given the already filled out graphic

organizer notes did better. This is beneficial to my study because graphic organizers can help

students stay organized and help them learn how to take notes (Robinson et al., 2006).

In my research, I found a note taking strategy about revising notes. In a college level

class, the material is so dense it's not enough to take notes and review them for a test but instead

a study argues that students should be revising notes. The study argues that students are taking

notes so fast and quick they may miss information or not have completed their thoughts. To help

with this the researchers say that when reviewing notes students should add more to them and
 7

make them more complete. In the study, they took 59 undergraduate students from a large

midwestern university where 88% of the applicants had higher than a 3.0 GPA (Luo et al., 2016).

The students then all listened to a lecture about reinforcement schedules with no pictures and just

the professor talking. Students took notes and then were randomly split into two groups, one for

recopying notes and the other for revising notes. Both groups were then given a multiple choice

exam about the lecture. The results showed that students who revised their notes specifically

using a different color pen did better on the test. The same study also tested if revising notes with

a partner was beneficial but their results showed working independently was about the same if

not better. One limitation of this study was that the researchers did not test the applicants prior

knowledge on the subject (Luo et al., 2016).

What was the plan?

implement Cornell notes (shown in figure 1) during the powerpoint lectures. From the study

about utilizing graphic organizers, I learned that structured notes help students remember

information better (Robinson et al., 2006). Cornell notes are structured very similar to a graphic

organizer because they have different boxes, each with a purpose. When taking Cornell notes

Students are asked to write the main ideas, details or facts about the main idea and then a

summary. These are a great way for taking notes from a powerpoint lecture because the main

ideas are written out on the powerpoint and then Ms. Stickler verbally goes into more detail. For

the summary section of Cornell notes, based on the study about reviewing and revising your

notes to improve comprehension, I planned on having students complete the summary for

homework the day before an exam. In order for students to write a comprehensive summary they

have to review their notes and possibly add more to their notes. The summary section thus serves

as reviewing and revising which is proven to help improve exam scores.

On week 5 (due to the fact we spent 4 weeks observing) Ms.Sticklor gave me permission

to take half of the students in her Advanced Placement class (approximately 8 students) and

implement Cornell notes. I was going to take 2 students out at a time and explain their role in the

experiment. In order for this experiment to work, laptops must be put away and I would explain

to students the research showing laptop note-taking is not nearly as effective, in hopes students

would understand using a lap is not sufficient for note-taking (Mueller et al., 2014). Next, I

would show them an example of Cornell notes explaining how to use them while using the

examples of Virgina Woolf. I planned on saying to students, “On the power point when the slide

title is “Virginia Woolf's Life”, that is something you write in the main points column. Then as

Ms.Sticklor continues to go over Woolf's life you write down in your own words what

Ms.Sticklor says in the “note” column. For the summary section you will wait to do that until the

night before a test. When you are studying for your test you will write a comprehensive summary

using the material you have learned from the lecture. From here on out for every lecture you will

use these notes. ”. On week 6 I wanted the 7 students to be using Cornell notes every time there

was a powerpoint. The students were about to start a new chapter on F. Scott Fitzgerald and this

meant a test would come. I was going to ask Ms.Sticklor when the test would be to inform the

students they needed to bring in a summary and show me. I would read them and determine how

much effort was put into the summary. On Week 7 I planned on asking Ms.Sticklor how the

students performed on the test, specifically the 7 students I taught Cornell notes to, compared to

the other students who were not taught Cornell notes. Over the weeks I planned on observing or

asking to see their Cornell notes to see how seriously students were taking the experiment. One

limitation of my own study is that there is no way to prove that the students actually took notes
 9

when I was not there or reviewed/revised their notes before a test. I hoped that student test scores

and comprehension would rise.

Conclusion

After all my research, planning, coordinating with Ms. Sticklor and the students, I am

disappointed I did not get to implement my study. Students can not succeed in an academic

setting without learning to take notes. I was hoping my study would prove to them first hand that

Cornell notes will improve your grades and comprehension skills. My hypothesis was that

students would take Cornell notes from the powerpoint lecture and their understanding of the

material would improve. Throughout this process I have learned that when I am a teacher and I

expect students to take notes, make sure students know how to properly do so using a structured

format.

Reference Page
Robinson, D. H., Katayama, A. D., Beth, A., Odom, S., Hsieh, Y.-P., & Vanderveen, A.

(2006). Jstor. Increasing Text Comprehension and Graphic Note Taking Using a Partial

Graphic Organizer.
 10

Bohay, M., Blakely, D. P., Tamplin , A. K., & Radvansky, G. A. (2011). jstor. Note Taking,

Review, Memory, and Comprehension.

Luo, L., Kiewra, K. A., & Samuelson, L. (2016). Revising lecture notes: how revision,

pauses, and partners affect note taking and achievement.

Mueller, P. A., & Oppenheimer, D. M. (2014, June). Jstor. The Pen Is Mightier Than the

Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking.

The Cornell Note Taking Method -Revisited. (2018, August).

Figure 1: Cornell Notes (with example of class material below)