Don’t faint but I agree with all Penny’s three points. Note taking has always worried me – just how good can a note-taker be in a wide range of subjects, especially
if very technical subjects, and how much of their own ‘spin’ do they put on it?
As a lecturer I was very keen to drive a policy of providing the presentation at least, notes if possible, to stop the students getting mistakes fossilised in their
notes. The role of Disability Officer was a godsend in having a reason for promoting such a system.
AT offers endless possibilities to all students for managing their information, not just to anyone with an impairment that justifies DSA funding!
This is an interesting discussion.
Alistair returns us to the questions of teaching and learning in which our practices find their roots.
When swamped with the demands of determining funding, we can lose access to other ways to organise and even to think about how to achieve the ends that we seek.
Notetaking has always posed questions for me. Ie, how far can notes be anything other than the notetaker’s perspective of the material, given that this is the mind that is filtering them.
·
Are we confirming students in an over-dependence on notetaking at the expense of their trust in their participation and thereby in education.
·
AT based strategies enable students to feel that they don’t have to re-listen or to transcribe lectures entirely for the recording to function as a resource.
·
What is the feasibility of core lectures being recorded and available to all for re-listening, thereby allowing for individual person hours needed to be deployed for the more specific circumstances, for example? Most often,
learning is not about hearing once, but hearing again, and from different angles, perspectives and in different contexts. Universities could even make some taster material available outside their intranet and permit students to see what they could get as a
way of interesting them in their courses.
Kind regards,
PG
For me – from a teacher perspective – there are some fundamental questions underlying the debate:
1)
Why are tutor notes not automatically available on the VLE? My teaching area put all key course content online in 1999 because it support all students – whether or not they had declared a disability – and we had a handle
on the quality control. Tutor notes online may not completely remove the need for a notetaker but they would support a lot of other students.
2)
If students don’t need to make notes they may be more attentive rather than less attentive. If you’re busy writing things down you’re not busy questioning and probing them.
3)
What is the purpose of lessons / lectures? If students wouldn’t come to lectures if the notes were available online maybe that says more about lectures than it says about students.
I take the point that notes are student’s property and there shouldn’t be undue pressure to share but since the DSA is paid for by public funds I don’t see any intrinsic harm in public benefits accruing
where possible.
A
Hi Alistair,
I’m afraid I disagree with your analysis. You seem to me to be misunderstanding the principle and nature of the note-taker role. Apologies if I’ve misunderstood you.
The note-taker is paid for from the student’s DSA and the notes produced are therefore the student’s personal property. It is a student decision to make regarding whether they can be shared. However, as Ember
has already pointed out there are problems if the student agrees and it becomes a formal arrangement.
In addition to Ember’s points there is also the fact that the note-taker is supposed to take the notes according to the student’s preferences. They will have different requirements of the note-taker in different
situations and these may not match the expectations of the other students or, indeed, the tutor.
More importantly, however, the notes are paid for from the DSA in part because the University/tutor does not make detailed notes available themselves. For the tutor/HEI to then use these notes to benefit the
whole student body is a misuse of public funds in my opinion. If the tutor wishes to support their student cohort by producing notes of their teaching session on-line after the session, then there are many ways of doing so. It is their responsibility to do
this across the board – not to put pressure on to the student so to do their job for them.
There is also the issue of consistency. What about students on the same course in different groups who don’t get access to the notes?
I don’t think it is an opportunity to be grasped, I think it would be an abdication of responsibility on behalf of the tutor and place unfair pressure on the student to fill the gap.
Best wishes
Paddy
I had a similar situation in my college years ago. The subject tutor thought it was an excellent idea because not only would it benefit other learners but it would also give her feedback on how much of the lesson
was being understood by the notetaker!
Unfortunately the (then) head of learning support took the view that the funding was for supporting a specific learner with specific needs and letting other people be supported by the notes would compromise that
contract.
To me it's a classic case of perceiving something as an opportunity to be grasped or a risk to hide from. I would grasp it.
A
Morning,
Just wondered what the collective wisdom was regarding permitting disabled students to share note-taker produced notes with other students via Moodle. A student of our has been asked by his classmates if he could do this, and he’s happy
to oblige; the department have been in touch to enquire whether there are any reasons why this might be a bad idea.
On one level it highlights a lack of existing provision here at the Institute as we don’t operate any co-ordinated system for recording lectures.
Any thoughts would be welcomed.
David Walmsley
Disability & Wellbeing Support Manager
Registry & Student Support
Institute of Education
University of London
Email:
[log in to unmask]
Tel. 020 7612 6604
Fax. 020 7612 6185
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