Download Student resource

Questioning to Find Information
Questioning to Find Information
Introduction
Activity Outline
This session guides students to consider the best practice for making notes and to develop questioning
strategies for active reading. It involves students bringing their cover sheets and lecture notes from a
lecture in the time elapsed since the last session. It would also be most beneficial if the lecturer could
identify an article or passage related to the course that students can use to practice their active reading
technique upon. If this cannot be achieved then a passage is provided.
Pg.
Activity
Outcome
3
1. Students place selected lecture notes and their cover sheets from the previous
session on their desks alongside a blank piece of paper titled ‘feedback’. They leave
their desks and visit the desks of 4-5 other students, analysing their notes for
positive and negative note-making traits and leaving them two positive and one
negative (for improvement) comments on their feedback paper.
1
Learning Objective
Students will analyse their note-making process and develop a criteria for effective note-taking in
collaboration with others and through peer assessment. They will develop and practise active reading
techniques focused on forming questions whilst reading.
2. Students return to their desks and read their own feedback. They discuss what
they have analysed and concluded about effective note-making with other
members of their group. They summarise their findings on pg.3 and share them
with the class.
Learning Outcomes
1.
2.
To analyse own lecture notes for positive and negative note-making traits and techniques. To use
peer assessment and the sharing of good practice to formulate a criteria for effective note making.
To explore and describe the different types of questions that can be asked during active reading.
To practise active reading via questioning by reading and annotating an article.
3. Lecturers may wish to make a ‘master list’ of positive note-making traits and to
pick up some main points from pg. 6.
4-5
Timings: 20 minutes
Pre-activity Requirements from Students:
4. Lecturer highlights the importance of active reading – asking yourself questions
as you are reading. Students read more about the different types of questions on
pg. 5 and then complete the task on pg. 5 – the active reading of an article
(provided by the lecturer or they can use the one on pg.5) whilst annotating the
article with the questions they are asking themselves as they go along.
2
5. Lecturer takes feedback – students may be shocked at the types of questions
they commonly ask themselves.
Students need to bring their completed cover sheets and lecture notes from a lecture that they have
attended since the previous session. If they do not have the cover sheet then any example of recent
lecture notes can be used.
Resources
 Student resource booklet, pages 3-6
 An article or passage of interest related to the course to practise active reading with
 Students should bring along their lecture notes from recent lectures and their cover sheets from
the previous session (see above).
Optional Self-study for extension of skills using Skills4study Campus
Reading and note-making —> Effective reading and making notes while reading
Skills4study campus can be accessed from: http://www.skills4studycampus.com/orglogin.aspx
1
2
Active reading involves asking yourself questions as you read. It is essential that you practise active
reading in order to personally connect to the material you are reading. There are several different types
of question you can ask yourself as you read, involving different levels of cognitive demand (difficulty).
You should have with you at least one cover sheet and your lecture notes for at least one lecture that
you have undertaken since your last session. Find these now. You are going to be comparing, contrasting
and analysing your notes with others. You will then create a scale to define what makes effective notes.
Do
1.
Place your cover sheet and lecture notes on your desk alongside a plain
piece of paper that you write the title ‘feedback’ on.
2.
Leave your table and walk around the room visiting (and analysing) other
people’s cover sheets and lecture notes.
3.
For each different person, make a list of the things that you think make the
notes effective and the things that you think limit the quality of the notes.
4.
Write two positive things the person does to make their notes effective and
one thing you think detracts from the quality of their notes.
5.
Ensure you visit at least 5 different people and analyse their notes
6.
Return to your place and read the feedback you have been left.
Recall/Comprehension Questions
Where—When—What—Who —(Why—How)




Where is Paris?/Why did Paris develop in this location?
When did Piaget make his theory of cognitive development?/What is it?
What does the theory of Universal gravitation state?
Who created this image of the last supper?/What does it show?
These questions practise factual recall and these will often be the initial questions
that you set out to answer by reading. For example, you could choose to use an
atlas to find where Paris is located. Once you know where it is, you might ask
yourself further questions, such as ‘what towns are around it?’ or ‘when did it form?’
Questions Promoting Application and Analysis
What—Why—How—Where
Do




With the people in your group, use what you have experienced from looking at
the notes of others to quickly create a criteria to define ‘what makes effective
notes?’, for example—colourful notes are easier to use that black and white
ones—so ‘colour’ could be one of your criteria.
What contribution did the Seine play in the development of Paris as a city?
How are Piaget’s developmental stages different?
Why does Newton’s first law of motion make this car move?
Where is the evidence that Dali was intending to mix his religious views with
surrealism in this painting?
Application questions show that you are applying new ideas, facts and theories to
other or new problems as you are reading. Analytical questions show that you are
making connections between information.
Record your criteria below and then share your criteria with the class.
Questions Promoting Synthesis and Evaluation
Criteria for Effective Note-making
How—Could– Should– Would




How has Paris developed to be the capital of France?
Could Piaget be compared to Gardner?
Would the theory of Universal gravitation be applicable inside a black hole?
Should Dali have mixed a religious event with artistic expression?
Evaluation and synthesis are the most difficult questions to form and answer—they
are what drive research. They involve a lot of prior knowledge and understanding of
the topic, and are the types of questions you could ask yourself when you are very
familiar with the topic you are reading about. They are often the questions that
drive the need to read in the first place!
3
4
Do
You will be given an article or book extract relevant to your course, or you can
use the extract below. Using the information on the previous page, practise
asking yourself the different types of questions as you read—summarising them
alongside the text as you go….make sure you include the simple ones such as
‘what is this article about’ or ‘how is this relevant to me’ etc.
Making notes while reading
Making your notes useful and
memorable
© Original content by Stella Cottrell, 2010
skills4studycampus, Palgrave Macmillan
1
Alcock, P. (2008). Social Policy in Britain, 3rd edn. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 1–2.
Good note-making
Think before you write.
Keep notes brief.
Keep notes organised.
Use your own words.
Leave a wide margin and spaces so that you can add notes later.
WHAT IS SOCIAL POLICY?
Social policy is an academic subject, studied by students on undergraduate
and postgraduate degree programmes and in a number of areas of
professional training. It is also studied by some students at A level or in
further education; but for the most part social policy study takes place in
Universities and other higher education institutions. Social policy can be
studied as a discrete subject, on a single honours programme; but there are
many other students (indeed the large majority) studying the subject as one
element in a broader social studies programme, or as part of a related
programme in sociology or political science or, as mentioned above, as part
of a programme of professional training for instance, in social work, health
science, housing or planning.
2
Useful strategies
Note key words and main ideas.
Write phrases – not sentences.
Use abbreviations.
Use headings.
Number the points.
Use colour, symbols and illustrations to make the page memorable.
Link related points using boxes, lines, arrows, numbers and colour.
Note sources of information exactly.
Write quotations in a different colour.
Social policy is also, however, the term used to refer to the actions taken
within society to develop and deliver services for people in order to meet their
needs for welfare and wellbeing. Social policy is thus both the name of the
academic subject and the focus of what is studied. Thus sociologists study
society, whilst social policy students study social policy. This may seem
confusing, but it need not be. Indeed the terminological link between what we
study and what we do makes clear the link between analysis and practice
which is what attracts many people into social policy, as we shall discuss
below.
Studying social policy alongside other subjects such as sociology or
economics also raises questions about the extent to which social policy is a
discrete subject, or discipline, as academics sometimes call them. It is likely
that there will always be argument and debate about what constitutes an
academic subject, and in social science, in particular, there is debate about
the overlap between subjects such as sociology, economics, politics and social
policy, and about what should be the core concerns of each. Certainly social
policy overlaps with other subjects, such as these and others like social work
or criminology; and this has led some to question whether social policy is an
inter-disciplinary field rather than a discrete academic subject. This is not a
terribly fruitful debate, however, for disciplinary boundaries are disputed in all
academic subjects, and inter-disciplinary work is widely promoted across the
social sciences.
3
Unhelpful strategies
Copying chunks and phrases.
Writing more notes than you can use again.
Writing out notes several times to make them neater.
4
Tidying messy notes
Draw ‘squares’ around sections of notes, using different colours to make them stand out.
Use a ruler to divide the page up between sections.
Draw rings round floating bits of information.
Link stray information by colour-coding it.
Example from skills4studycampus, Palgrave Macmillan
5
6