Classroom Tips

Social studies has a body of knowledge - content - that students, like it or not, must learn. And, even the most dynamic and creative social studies teachers must find themselves in front of the class figuratively moving that social studies content from their notes or the textbook to the students' notebooks, hopefully their heads, and even more hopefully to the unit test at the end of the six weeks. If you are a social studies teacher, especially at the secondary level, you can't avoid giving your students notes. The question is how to give these notes without boring the students to death.

In social studies, giving students notes is a common teaching technique. It presumes that there is a body of social studies knowledge that students ought to learn and that the teacher or some other authority has the responsibility to order and synthesize this knowledge in some systematic fashion so that it is understandable for students. At some point in every social studies classroom, students take notes. Traditional methods, such as writing notes on the chalkboard or dictating, are probably the most commonly used. But one-trick ponies like the chalkboard become tiresome for both teachers and students. Making choices from the variety of options helps when you see some options. The list below gives a short summary of some creative ways teachers can give notes. Again, like dictating, not all of them excite all the students all the time. But, each is a legitimate and creative teaching activity-useful some of the time.

Group Discussion: Split the class into six working groups of an equal number of students. Split the material to be covered into six equal sections. Assign each group the responsibility for one of the six sections, asking them to give 8-10 points from their review that the rest of the class should know. Have them give group reports or make visuals.
The Two Hat Technique: In sections where there are different points of view or perspectives that could be brought out i.e. different sides during a war, strike, or conflict OR how different social classes or ethnic groups might see an incident in history use two different hats as props. As you are discussing one side of the issue, put the hat representing that side on. As you switch to the other side, change hats. This technique will work well at the elementary levels and when the teacher is quite familiar with the different perspectives of an issue.
Student Responsibilities: Give students responsibilities for taking their own notes by studying the material to be covered on their own and producing one of the following products:

A transparency to be used by the teacher
A storyboard or cartoon depicting an event or historical incident
A rap music song
A lesson plan that they can give the class by "being the teacher" for a moment
A readers' theatre
A video for the class i.e. a newscast, a panel, or a talk show.
An oral or written story based on the event studied
A puppet show

Posters: Where appropriate, ask students to design posters based on the material to be covered i.e. a travel poster for a geographical area studied or an election poster for a current or historical election.
Games and Puzzles: Teachers can make word games out of the vocabulary notes. Some of these include crossword puzzles, hidden word searches, and sentences where the important word is jumbled with mixed-up letters. There are a variety of free computer programs to help teachers make word games. The games are enjoyable ways to help students repeated use social studies vocabulary.
Demonstrations: Teachers can demonstrate the notes in a dramatic fashion or can have students playact the notes. Historical events, like the signing of peace treaties, strikes, or even battles can be described and enriched in an active manner. In our experience, students love to script or role-play these scenes.
Storytelling: Teachers can learn historical events so well that they can almost fictionalize them by a third-person omniscient viewpoint. It is intriguing to place feelings and emotions on the characters.
Messed-up Outline: Teachers can create an outline for a paper, with topic sentences and points under these topic sentences. Once this outline has been completed, teachers can provide the skeleton of the outline the numbers and letters. Underneath this outline skeleton, place the sentences or phrases that were once in the skeleton. The student's job is to put the proper phrase in the proper letter/number. This activity helps students learn and practice the logic of organizing a writing assignment.
Pictures/photos: In a variation of storytelling, teachers could use photos or pictures of important aspects of the material as props and tell the story from the pictures, e.g. pictures of historical events or of people.
Learning Stations/Modules: Teachers can create a number of stations where students can listen, view, or copy notes. These workstations should be short - perhaps five to ten minutes in total. Students, or groups of students, can move from one station to another during a class time.
Student Matching: To help students learn vocabulary, teachers can place vocabulary words on one card and definitions on another. Create enough words and definitions so that every class member either has a word or definition. Pass them out to students. Have students find a match by moving around and talking to other students. When they have found their match, they should write it down. They should then find others who have also matched and write down their vocabulary terms and definitions. Repeat this until students have written down all the terms.
"This Is/Was Your Life": Students can set up a television show based on "This Is Your Life." The historical personality sits in the center of stage, from off-stage voice give information about relationships or events, then walk on-stage to meet the character.
Fieldtrips: Teachers can set up fieldtrips to different places. They can also set up a fieldtrip scavenger hunt where students must go to different places around the school to find notes. One version of this works well with students new to a school - such as a grade seven class - where school staff can be given answers to questions on a worksheet students have. In this way, students can learn to navigate the school and learn the names of school personnel.
Treasure Hunt: Notes can be hidden at different places around the school, and students must follow a treasure map to find them.
Archaeological Displays: Teachers can bring in artifacts that highlight different pieces of information being studied and tell about these displays.
Documentary Films: Teachers can show films about historical incidents and using note-taking questions. One way to help students attend to the film is to create a simple, fill-in-the blank answer sheet that students can fill in as they view the film.
Time Machine: Teachers can take imaginary trips back through time and have students visualize events that are taking place.
Webbing: Using a web outline, with the major point in a circle at the middle and lines drawn to sub-points in circles around the major point, teachers can help students outline whole sections of text.
Mindstorming: After a section of the text is read by the class, teachers can have students try to remember the whole text by "mindstorming" brainstorming what they remember and using other people's memories to jog their own.
Retrieval Charts: Teachers can provide completed charts for students to use to retrieve information. These charts can also be left empty for students to fill in. Charts like these can help younger students put structures on their note-taking.
Songs and Rhyme: Teachers can create, or have students create, songs or rhymes with the notes in them.
Community Resource People: Inviting people into class to tell about different time periods, geography, or historical incidents provide information to students.
Classroom Market Place: One wall of the classroom is designated to the subject being studied. Students tack or tape the notes they have been assigned to research onto the wall. When the wall is filled with a complete set of notes, a certain time is allotted each day for review. This can be done many different ways. For example, different students can act as market place reporters, standing in front of the wall and giving a news flash about the item or event etc.
True or False Audio Tape: Students can listen to the teacher or someone else give notes from a tape. They are given a set of notes with some "accurate" statements and some "inaccurate" statements. They are directed to write true or false beside the statement on the sheet as they listen to the tape.
Student Question Market: Students are directed to read a section of text and write a question or more than one and answer from that section. They set up a market where they trade questions with each other. Using these questions - if they are good - encourages students to study for the up-coming exam.
Visual Association: As the teacher reads a part of the text or students can read their own text, they are directed to draw a picture that represents or helps them visualize that part of the text.
Team Questions: The class is split into two teams. Each reviews a chapter in 15 minutes and writes questions for the other team. They take turns asking the other team these questions. If they can answer, they get 5 points. If they miss, they get none. This can be open book or closed book.
Bulletin Board Answers: Each day before class starts, the teacher places a question on the bulletin board that will be on the test. When class starts the question comes down. This activity helps students learn to come to class on time.
On-Line Scavenger Hunt: Students are given a number of separate topics to investigate on the Internet. They take notes on their topic and post their notes onto a public forum, chat line or community e-mail that has been set up in advance. Each student then copies and pastes the posted notes onto a document that goes into their notebook.
Web Site: The teacher or a technically advanced student creates a simple web site for the subject being studied. Students research and prepare the notes for the site, sending them to the teacher via e-mail or diskette. Teacher or students post the notes onto the site. Everyone can then create their own notes document by copying and pasting from the site.

At some point in the social studies classroom, or any classroom, your students will have to take notes. But these notes do not need to be transcribed via the traditional method of dictation or copying from the board. Indeed, the more creative the notes, the more likely your students will remember them. We hope this list helps you and your students find innovative ways in which to pass on knowledge. More importantly, we hope that you will be able to springboard from these suggestions and discover your own unique note-taking ideas.