Guided notes are instructor prepared notes that outline lectures, units, readings, or other teaching materials but that leave blanks for students to follow along and fill in. Conferencing in some way after the guided notes are completed by the student allows the instructor to check that the student correctly filled in the blanks and thus has the correct information in their notes. Below is a protocol for creating and reviewing guided notes with your student or group of students.
A set of notes is prepared that contains the essential information to be covered in the lecture content or assigned reading.
The instructor reviews the notes and highlights or underlines the key facts, concepts, or information that the student will be responsible for writing into the final version of the guided notes.
Using a word document or google document, the instructor replaces the segments of notes identified in the previous step with blanks.
Prior to handing out copies of the guided notes, the instructor ensures that student(s) understand their responsibility to attend to content covered in the lecture or the reading and to fill in each of the blanks in the guided notes with the appropriate concepts, definitions, or other content.
After the lesson or activity is complete, the instructor should then check over the student's responses. This can be done by revealing the answers and allowing the student to check, during a one-on-one conference, with a small group, or by collecting the notes to go over before promptly returning to the student. A one-on-one conference may be the best setting in which to assess understanding.
An example of guided notes is below for your reference.
