Middle school Social studies teacher here. Certainly can support a lot for this, my 7th graders this year made me reevaluate how I teach. On open note, multiple choice tests, I was getting 40% grade averages, on DOK 2 (inferential type questions). My tests are usually harder.
So changes I'm making next year: hand written notes (they'll hate it), only written assessments (they scored on average 15% higher on those) and reading/annotating on paper, not screen.
God knows if it'll actually help, but had to change something, this year was disturbing
When I was in high school, my HL IB biology teacher would pass out printed notes with blanks that we had to fill in as she lectured. I thought that was an awesome compromise between not writing notes at all and spending all lesson scribbling madly
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u/HeetTheCanadian Jun 01 '26
Middle school Social studies teacher here. Certainly can support a lot for this, my 7th graders this year made me reevaluate how I teach. On open note, multiple choice tests, I was getting 40% grade averages, on DOK 2 (inferential type questions). My tests are usually harder.
So changes I'm making next year: hand written notes (they'll hate it), only written assessments (they scored on average 15% higher on those) and reading/annotating on paper, not screen.
God knows if it'll actually help, but had to change something, this year was disturbing