Comments on: doodling as pedagogy

By: Sara J

Sara J — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 00:26:26 +0000

I’ve heard that doodlling is about kinetic learners who instead of notes make a page of sketches but that upon looking at their sketches can recall the information in the lecture.

By: Anne-Marie

Anne-Marie — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 22:32:47 +0000

I used to tell people that the level of comprehensiveness in my class notes was directly related to how boring the lecture was. That wasn’t always true, but it was true enough – I definitely use the notetaking as a focus-keeping strategy myself. And I often combine the two.

Derik, if I could draw like you do I would probably do that exclusively. I would have to focus way above the doodle level to do anything but fancy letters, though!

I don’t really take the note-taking thing in my classes personally — though I am thinking now about how to change it. My husband and too many other people who teach regular credit classes say that it’s an issue in their classes too – not so much a problem that the students don’t take notes so much as a lot of them don’t know how to take useful notes. Many will knock themselves out trying to copy down all of the words that are on the slides – when, of course, it’s the ideas between the bullet points that you usually really need to make a note of. I don’t tend to lecture for more than 5-10 minutes, and when I do I’m usually doing live demos – I hardly ever use a slide, much less a bullet point – so I just don’t think it *looks* like a note-taking situation, if that makes any sense.

I think the writing down the bullet points idea is probably related to why Barbara’s father’s trick works. If bullet points are a visual “write this down” signifier — then the number thing is an auditory version of same?

By: Catherine

Catherine — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 19:24:42 +0000

I’m always surprised at how many students don’t even bother taking out note-taking supplies in my instruction sessions. One of these days I’m going to ask them, “do you honestly expect not to hear a single thing worth writing down in the next hour?” Maybe I’ll wait until after I have tenure to ask that…

I do try always to supply them with a handout, if for no other reason than to get my contact information into their hands, and in case they DO realize that there’s something worth writing down, they have something on which to write it. Perhaps I’ll start supplying pencils, too, to enable doodling.

I had a grad assistant a few years back who, when she did instruction sessions, would always stick a neon Post-It note on her podium that said, “They will always look bored.” She said it counteracted that pit-of-the-stomach, “I’m really tanking up here” feeling of seeing bored faces in the classroom.

By: DerikB

DerikB — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 15:15:01 +0000

Thanks for posting about this. I’m a long time doodler and I’ve always believed it helped me listen better. People always comment about my doodling in meetings and I tell them this. Now I’ve got something to back up my assertions.

Also, discovered your blog the other week and I’ve really been enjoying it.

By: Barbara

Barbara — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:37:54 +0000

Interesting study. As for note-taking … I do that in lieu of doodling when I’m at a meeting, know I need to pay attention, and have no intention of actually consulting the notes later. It just keeps me focused. I should try doodling.

My father, who taught journalism, said the key to getting students to start taking notes was to number things. “Here’s a very important concept, and here’s something cool, and this is something you really need to know. I’ll also mention there are three things that are entirely trivial . . . ” Pens immediately start moving across the page….