In my last post I explored the cognitive
advantages to using Doodle Notes in the classroom. Downsides to providing
students with a sheet of blank paper and asking them to copy down your doodles
is that you lose the time efficiency of a fill-in-the-blank note and their thought
process and creativity might be stifled by your own. For those reasons I
created a scaffolding for the Doodle Notes, so that my class time was being
used efficiently, students still had opportunities to infuse their own
creativity and I could explain why I chose the images and paths that I did… and
maybe part of the reason was that I am too type-A that my own doodles would
take forever to draw out.
For the most part, I create my Doodle
Notes in PowerPoint (I am learning Adobe Illustrator but the learning curve is
STEEP!) I’ve found I can perform most tasks in PowerPoint quite well, but
Adobe Illustrator has some technical advantages.
With
PowerPoint, I can create quickly. It is easy to import clipart and fonts
that I have purchased. I can even create custom shapes by using the “Edit
Points” option. There are limitations, but most of these are visual and
do not affect the students’ learning (inability to change the thickness of line
art, difficult to “lock” objects in place).
Adobe Illustrator has a huge learning
curve. I'm a Science teacher, not a graphic artist! I’ve been using tutorials and templates to
help me along, but these come with a cost - the most expensive being the time
it takes to learn and create. The biggest advantage to using Adobe
Illustrator is the masterpiece that is created once the scaffolded Doodle Note
is complete.
Either way, students are more likely
to go back and study from their Doodle Notes, compared to their more
traditional notes.
With either program, I begin with
determining which orientation I think would work best (portrait or landscape),
and create a 8.5”x11” slide or art board. After reviewing what concepts I
want to cover, I write out the content on the page (which I later remove for
the students to enter) and search for images that support the content. I
consider what the students can color in addition to what they can draw and
write. I start with the key images - that might be the Sun, Moon and
Earth for a Doodle Note about solar and lunar eclipses. As I proceed, and
position the image and text elements, I add connectors like arrows to solidify
those connections for the students. A lot of adjusting happens throughout
the process. It does take a lot of time to create, but students start
begging for these notes once they’ve had a taste!
In my next post, I will explore how I
teach with Doodle Notes to innovate my Science classroom.
The doodle note teaching strategy was developed by Math Giraffe and is trademarked; Please see doodlenotes.org for more information.
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