Teachers have found greater success when students document their learning while they complete Penda activities. Taking notes and writing activity summaries is one way to accomplish this. Penda has created a variety of note-taking guides, learning logs, and learning journals to make this easy for teachers and students.
This process of writing what they are learning will help students digest information more thoroughly, while also identifying both known and unknown vocabulary, main ideas, supporting details, and key concepts. Students can then use their notes when attempting the activity repeatedly to achieve a higher score. Writing within the content area also supports ELA standards and is proven to positively impact the retention of information.
Use Case: One teacher in South Florida requires her students to use a Penda note-taking guide to take notes as they complete assigned Penda activities. When students get to a question screen in the activity, if they do not have the answer to the question in their notes, they are to go back to the previous information screen to take more notes to ensure they have all of the important information documented. They use these notes as they answer the activity questions, and they keep the notes to study for quizzes and tests.
Teaching students to document their learning in a visual manner is also helpful. Many instructors teach their students how to create thinking maps and graphic organizers as an alternative to note-taking guides. These are especially helpful for students who are visual learners.
