A few years ago, I tried using sketchnotes with my high school students. You can see some of my previous posts here. At the time, I was working with very high ability students who I had known for several years and who were used to me challenging them try new things. Also, sketchnoting as a classroom strategy was pretty unheard of at the time. I could find little examples of other people using it in the classroom.
Since that time, sketchnoting and doodle notes have taken off. I still absolutely love the idea of visual note taking for students. The idea behind doodle notes is to provide students with a scaffold until they are comfortable with creating their own.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve tried a couple with my students. The first was a revision (study guide) for my year 7s (like 6th grade) to prepare them for an upcoming test. They seemed to enjoy the homework, but I won’t know how effective it was until I see the test results.
The second was a lesson on mass versus weight with a year 9 class (like 8th grade). We did it as part of our follow up to note taking, and my students LOVED the exercise. They loved being able to colour, and eagerly completed the work. It was definitely a strategy they enjoyed.
As I continue to create this, I plan to share as there are so few resources our there. For now, here are the ones I made for mixtures and separation and mass versus weight. Feel free to use with your classes. There are two versions, one with a dot grid background and one without. Let me know what you think!