As always, I'm engaging in an interesting social experiment in my classroom, caused in this case by the need to provide an accommodation to a student with a learning disability who needed a "note taker."  The Academic Accommodations people asked me to find someone to be a volunteer note taker, but to be sure not to let anyone know that another student had a learning disability.  Go figure.  So I ask each class for a volunteer to take notes on behalf of the entire class, then using the blog feature of Blackboard, post the notes at the end of class.  Other students can (and do) comment on the notes, and even ask questions.  For the volunteer, note taking becomes a form of class participation, and counts toward the grade.  Everyone can see the notes, and the poor student with the learning disability is never singled out as someone who needs help.
 
When we started this process, the notes people were posting were lousy.  As the semester has gone on, they've gotten a lot more organized and thorough.  Necessity was the mother of invention here, but I've been pleasantly surprised. And at least one student has something to do with a laptop other than shop.
 
Carolyn
 
Carolyn Hotchkiss
Babson College

________________________________

From: Academy of Legal Studies in Business (ALSB) Talk on behalf of Sally Gunz
Sent: Fri 3/9/2007 6:01 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Taking Notes, Not (much)



Oh Micheal -- must be true. Indeed, they probably took their books with
them to the beach (which reminds me of a colleague who many years ago
took the midterms with him to grade somewhere in the Carrabean, left
them at Miami airport , and picked them up on the way back! He was the
ultimate lucky guy.).

Now re notes, and I'm sure Darren can attest, at U of W School of
Accountancy, where every quarter mark takes on enormous significance, I
am afraid, note taking remains the norm (well I think it is -- I try not
to look up too often!!). However, I fear those notes may well be like
the ones I took at law school. When it came to reading them many moons
later, other than the fact that they seemed to have been in my
hand-writing, they were an entirely alien art-form. But they were there
and perhaps of value. I believe I passed.

And the flip side of note-taking: the old argument that if something is
in the notes a) I must have said it and b) it must be right and ergo c)
the grading is incorrect.

Sally

Michael O'Hara wrote:

>ALSBTALK:
>
>      Thank you.
>
>      I feel so much better now.  I have been gazing out across a sea of
>TV-faces and inert wrists since the beginning of the semester.
>
>      I never care how it is that a student comes to have subjective
>knowledge of the elements of a tort or of a contract.  If my scintillating
>lectures are the source, then that is fine.  If some force totally
>independent of me is the source, then that too is fine.  Alas, the
>probability density function of such knowledge has been strongly correlated
>with note taking.  I am finding it difficult to maintain my optimism with
>respect to the exam grades that will be generated upon their return from
>spring break.  Do you think those that do not take notes spend more of
>their spring break time studying?
>
>Michael
>
>Professor Michael J. O'Hara, J.D., Ph.D.
>Finance, Banking, & Law Department        Editor, Journal of Legal
>Economics
>College of Business Administration        (402) 554 - 2014 voice fax (402)
>554 - 3825
>Roskens Hall 502                    www.AAEFE.org
>University of Nebraska at Omaha           www.JournalOfLegalEconomics.com
>Omaha  NE  68182                    http://nbdc.unomaha.edu/aaefe
>[log in to unmask]
>(402) 554 - 2823 voice  fax (402) 554 - 2680
>http://cba.unomaha.edu/faculty/mohara/web/ohara.htm
>
>
> 
>