Join the conversation about this post in our Facebook Group – with a community of amazing educators.
Problem of Practice:
How can we help students retain more information, organize their thoughts, and creatively think about ideas and concepts they are learning in class?
The Answer? 💥Sketchnoting💥
What is Sketchnoting?
Sketchnoting is a form of visual note-taking.
It combines doodling and text to help students CREATE notes in a way that allows them to construct knowledge and/or cognitively struggle with information. This grappling with information creates the environment for long term retention of ideas and concepts. Students can use this process to visually organize their thoughts and ideas. Sketchnoting helps students do these three things.
Why is it important?
Sketchnoting is important because our brains are better attuned to remember images and visuals..Students who study with sketchnotes look at the notes as more of a story than a bunch of words that begin to blend into the page.Our brains can process images 60,000 times faster than words and people who doodle during a conversation (or lesson) have been found to retain nearly 30% more information than those who do not.
Source: The Thinking Benefits of Doodling from Harvard Health
In the post above, we learn that “paying continuous attention places a strain on the brain, and doodling may be just the break your brain needs to keep attending without losing total interest.”
Because of this, doodling has also been found to help students focus and can improve concentration – a very positive byproduct for any student suffering from the challenges of ADD.
Think of Sketchnoting as a more modern version of something like Cornell Notes – and because it is fueled by visuals first and words second., it helps students retain more of the information than traditional note-taking.
The Second Problem of Practice:
How can we introduce all students at a school to the power of sketchnoting?
Enter Day of Sketchnoting – A collaboration between Sylvia Duckworth, the Infused Classroom and Tomlinson Middle School in Lawton, OK.
The Learning Goals
- Introduce as many students as we can to Sketchnoting in one day
- Help the students understand how they can sketch in both analog and digital – on iPads and Touchscreen Chromebooks or pencil and paper.
- Allow them to discover the power of combining text and images
- Give them a sketchnote challenge to fuel further participation – past the one-day event.
- Continue to grow sketchnoting by delivering once a week quick and easy sketchnote practice sessions to teachers to try in their respective classrooms.
How did we accomplish both problems of practice?
We dedicated an entire day to sketchnoting and had teachers volunteer to bring their classes to the library to learn the skill.
Once they were in the library we provided a scaffolded approach to learning.
- Explained what sketchnoting is and passed out a reference sheet with fonts, banners and icons they could use as a guide while they learned to draw and doodle for learning.
- Played a video by Sylvia Duckwoth that guided students through the doodling process.
- Asked them to draw in analog first using pencil and paper.
Once they learned to doodle with Sylvia
- Supplied students time to practice in a low-stress environment – with music playing and lots of sharing.
- Went Digital – Students choose which app worked for them. Some drew in Book Creator, Paper 53, ProCreate or continued with paper and pencil. Their learning – their choice! When finished students will upload a screenshot of the sketchnote to Seesaw – this way they can see each other’s work and record an explanation of their sketchnote. This will allow them to make their thinking visible!
- To Keep the Excitement: we provided them with a sketchnote challenge and one week to turn it in to Seesaw to win a copy of How to Sketchnote and other prizes.
Follow-up to keep the momentum going for teachers (and students)?
We will be providing weekly Sketchnoting practice lessons for teachers to use in those moments where they have extra time. For example a warm-up activity or end of class focus session.
To get all of our resources you can join our Google Classroom. The Code: w4zefz3
Important Note: you must use your personal gmail account to access this Google Classroom – don’t have a personal gmail account – create one HERE.
Any ideas or questions? Use the hashtag #infusedclassroom and #dayofsketchnoting or contact holly@hollyclark.org
Note: This was part of an infused classroom long term school PD partnership with Tomlinson Middle School in Lawton, Oklahoma.