A few weeks ago I did a unit on visual note-taking with my
students. I’ve been fascinated by visual notes (or #viznotes,
sketchnotes, etc) for a few months now and I think they are a
great way for students to get engaged with lectures. I looked at
a lot of examples and realized that TED talks were the perfect
entrance into visual notetaking. My students started by looking
at examples of visual notes and then trying their own while we
listened to a TED talk in class. Then, for the next week or so
they chose a TED talk to watch for homework each night and
completed at least a page of visual notes. THIS WAS AWESOME. My
kids had the opportunity to watch at least 10 TED talks about
subjects they were passionate about. They started sharing TED
talks and making recommendations to me and their classmates. My
more visual learners excelled at sketch notes and were great
about helping their classmates. And those, like me, who aren’t
artistic? They also had a great time stretching their brains and
trying something new. Y