As a lifelong doodler, I’m loving reading all the research out there showing that many students benefit from doodling and sketching as they are taking notes, as it helps them to stay engaged, and to process information. Sketchnotes and organizational drawing, which allow students to visually map out their knowledge in a way that works for them, are particularly helpful when students need to understand relationships among concepts and gain a deeper understanding of complex topics, like when working through an IQ (2nd gen) or EXP STEM Lab in preparation for a classroom competition!
One way you could encourage students to embrace this strategy while doing VEX STEM Labs is to have them try sketchnoting during the Learn section of IQ and EXP STEM Labs. Sketchnoting along with the Learn videos could be a great way to help students to consolidate what they are learning as they prepare to apply it to the Practice and Competition Lessons!
I’d suggest modeling how you would sketch along to a Learn video first, emphasizing that these notes are personal to each student and the actual artistic quality of the sketchnotes doesn’t matter. Once you’ve modeled it, you can have students try it out, giving them another learning tool for their toolbox to use, if it works well for them. Students could even add these notes to their Engineering Notebooks to help them strategize.
For example, here are my Sketchnotes that I took as I watched the Tug of War Lesson 3 Learn video on Gears, Force and Mechanical Advantage:
Obviously, I’m not great at drawing, but as long as they help ME understand, then they have done their job!
Do any of you encourage sketchnoting in your STEM or Robotics classes?
