Hidden Slide for Instructor Topic Slides Time Estimate (Minutes) Notes/Suggestions Introduction Opening Question/ What We’ll Cover 3 - 4 5 If you are not going to cover reading a college textbook, revise slide 4—delete the blue boxes about textbooks. Start with slide 10. Reading College Textbooks Common Textbook Challenges 5 - 7 Pose questions to students and discuss challenges they’re facing. Point to examples from your course textbook. Tips on Reading College Textbooks 8 10 Give students the handout and talk through pages 1 and 2, giving examples and asking for reactions. Pair-Share-Discuss 9 7 Ask students to pair up and discuss which ideas for reading college textbooks they’ll use. Total 25 - 30 minutes CONTINUED Speaker’s notes offer suggested points – use or adapt as you wish. Some slides are set up so that text appears when you click. Some speaker’s notes have resources with additional information for the instructor, related to that slide.

Hidden Slide for Instructor Topic Slides Time Estimate (Minutes) Notes/Suggestions Summarizing Readings Introduction/Discussion 10 5 How to Summarize 11 - 14 15 - 20 Discuss steps for summarizing and work through the example with students. You can use the example on slides 10 and 11, or any example you want. If you use a different example, prepare a slide on it and/or make copies of the text to hand out. Prepare your own summary in advance. Concept Mapping 15 3 If you’ve covered concept mapping in the Note-Taking Skills lesson, this will be a quick refresher. Suggested approach is to have students practice concept mapping after practicing writing written summaries. Wrap-Up and Homework 16 2 Total 25 - 30 Speaker’s notes offer suggested points – use or adapt as you wish. Some slides are set up so that text appears when you click. Some speaker’s notes have resources with additional information for the instructor, related to that slide.

Speed Reading is Good Reading Pair- Share- Discuss What do you think about this statement? This is a big misconception about reading. Have students discuss this a bit because some of them might think that being able to read fast = good reading skills. Studies show that as reading speed increases, comprehension drops. This means you're not taking in the information, which defeats the purpose of reading.

Tips on Reading College Textbooks What We’ll Cover Tips on Reading College Textbooks Writing summaries Concept maps Summarizing Readings A skill you’ll use with many types of readings (not just textbooks) Tackling reading when time is tight Introduce lesson by telling students you’ll cover two skills that have to do with mastering new material. (If reading college textbooks does not apply to your course, delete the blue boxes and slides that deal with textbooks.) CLICK to have the Summarizing Readings boxes fade in. Taking notes and studying 8.1.16

Common Textbook Challenges You have to read a textbook chapter before your next class. You have very little time to read. What should you do? A. Read the whole chapter as fast as you can. B. Read at least the introduction, summary, and look at the figures/tables. C. Don’t try to read anything and tell the instructor you won’t be able to do the reading. D. Read the mid-section of the chapter—that’s where most important information is. Instructor: Tell you’ll present some common challenges students have with reading college textbooks and that the questions are just for discussion—they won’t be graded. There aren’t right or wrong answers—this is an opportunity to talk about methods that have worked well for other students. Have the textbook handy and point to examples of the items listed in answer “B.” The recommended best answer is “B.” If time is tight, read at least the introduction, summary and look at the figures. These highlight many of the most important points in the chapter and will help you get an overview. Regarding “C”—It’s always a good idea to tell the instructor if you’re having a challenge. But rather than giving up, try reading just the highlights listed in “B.” Regarding “A”—if you try to read the whole chapter fast, you probably won’t remember much. It’s better to zero in on the points covered in “B.” On “D,” diving into the middle of the chapter probably won’t serve you well. Get your bearings first by reading the sections in “B.”

Common Textbook Challenges How many times should you plan to read a textbook chapter? A. Once B. Twice C. Minimum of two times “C” is the best answer. Plan to read each chapter at least twice. Here’s a suggested method. First, look at the introduction, summary, and figures. Also notice the headings—the different sections of the chapter. Then, read the whole chapter once, without taking notes. Just aim to get a feel for what it covers. Then read it again, this time, taking notes. Work through any formulas. We’ll talk about some ways to take notes and check your understanding when you study.

Common Textbook Challenges When you’re learning new vocabulary words or formulas, is it better to: A. Memorize them. Do whatever it takes—make flash cards, etc. B. Memorize them and think about why they’re important and how they connect to other concepts. The better answer is “B.” A common mistake for students is to only memorize, and not think about what they’re learning and how it connects to what they’ve already learned. ------------------ Before moving on, ask students – How are you finding the textbook readings? Is there anything else that you’re finding challenging? Discuss.

Tips on Reading College Textbooks Handout – Pages 1 & 2 Tips on Reading College Textbooks   Instructor – Give students the Reading College Textbooks and Summarizing Readings Handout. Talk through pages 1 and 2. Turn this into a discussion by showing examples, asking questions such as, “Do you do this?” or checking for reactions.

Pair – Share - Discuss What ideas for working with college textbooks will you try out (or keep using)?   Check for questions about reading textbooks. Ask students to pair up with a student next to them and identify three ideas for working with college textbooks they’ll try out. If they’re already doing some thing that are working well, please share those. After students have shared, ask for a few examples. Then transition to Summarizing.

Summarizing Readings What is summarizing a text? What do you think it accomplishes? Is it sometimes hard to summarize? Why? What are different kinds of summaries you’ll be called on to prepare in college? Instructor: Lead a short discussion. Some suggested points are in parentheses; use them if they’re helpful. “Click” means click your mouse to get text to appear. What is summarizing a text? (Putting author’s ideas into your own words while staying true to the author’s meaning.) CLICK What do you think it accomplishes? (Helps you understand and remember written material, gives you a way to see the author’s main ideas, helps you pinpoint your questions. Can be especially useful to help you understand difficult materials.) Is it sometimes hard to summarize? Why? (You have to decide what’s important—what ideas to cover and what to leave out. You’re not just memorizing, you’re evaluating information to determine what’s important.) What are different kinds of summaries you’ll be called on to prepare in college? (Many! You may need to summarize sections of chapters, books, films, lectures; you may need to summarize material to share it with other students, write an annotated bibliography, or when you’re writing a research paper.)

How to Summarize 1. Review the information and write notes on: The topic The main point (also called “controlling idea”) Important details that are crucial to understanding the main point 2. Write a short paragraph. Include the topic, main point and important details. Re-read your paragraph. Delete repeats or information that is not crucial to understanding the main ideas. Add anything that helps you understand the central ideas. Review the information and write notes on: 1) The topic – what is the reading mainly about? Most topics can be summed up in just a few words.   2) Ask yourself what the author’s main point or controlling idea is and write down that idea. 3) List the important details that help to understand the controlling idea. That is, what are points that are critical for understanding the topic or main point?

Example: Mindsets Toward Learning One thing about human intelligence is absolutely certain: it is malleable, meaning it can be changed through exposure to new information or even by looking at what you know in a new way. There is no limit to what you can learn, and contrary to what some may think, nobody’s brain has ever been “filled.” The brain continually changes by making new neuroconnections between its cells, which represent new knowledge or skills, and when this happens we say someone has become smarter. It is possible for humans to become smarter all the time and in any area of study. Some subjects will be harder for you to learn than others, but learning in any area is possible. Intelligence is not a fixed quantity that you got at birth and are stuck with. You become smarter every day, and the intelligence you achieve in your lifetime is unknowable. That said, it does appear that your mindset about learning will have a heavy impact on how much you will learn—and just about everything else in your life. From The New Science of Learning by Terry Doyle and Todd Zakrajsek, pages 81-82 of e-book. Used with permission. Instructor: This is an example from The New Science of Learning. Use any example you want—any paragraph that has some “meaty” information. If you use a different paragraph, you can type it into this slide and/or print a copy for you and students to refer to. This is a long, dense paragraph. Let’s see if we can summarize it. Read the paragraph out loud. Ask: What’s the main point? Discuss and, if you want, underline key phrases. One possible summary of the main point: There is no limit to what you can learn, but your mindset about what you think you’re capable of will affect your learning. Ask: What are important details? (Discuss. Below are some ideas on key points.) Intelligence is not a fixed quantity that you got at birth and are stuck with. We can change our intelligence by exposing ourselves to new information or even by looking at what we know in a new way. Here’s an example of a summary (next slide).

Summary Example: Mindsets Toward Learning Each time we expose ourselves to new information, neurons make new connections and our brains change. When this happens, we build our intelligence—we become smarter. Our intelligence is not fixed. Any of us can become smarter at any time and in any area of study, although some subjects will be easier to learn than others. Our mindset, or how much we believe we can learn, has a big impact on how much we will learn. Read through summary, noting how it’s true to what the authors said, but expressed in a different way. There is not one right way to summarize; this is just one example. Do you see any information that is not critical to the main idea? Would you add or delete anything? Did this help you to get clearer on what the authors meant? By practicing summarizing, you’ll learn what works for you. You’re aiming to get to the point where you’re comfortable summarizing a chapter, an article or a book.

Tips on Summarizing Put the summary in your own words. Write in your own style—summaries don’t need to be fancy or academic sounding. If it’s helpful, use transition words, like “first,” “second,” “therefore,” “finally” and so on. Most summaries don’t have conclusions, so don’t spend time trying to wrap things up (unless the instructor has asked you to comment or provide your own opinion). If you’re summarizing several texts by different authors, include the text’s title and author’s name in your summary. If you’re not sure about your summary, ask someone who isn’t familiar with the material to read it and tell you the main points. Let students read over the tips, then check for questions about summarizing.

Concept Maps Primary Headings/ Main Points Title of Chapter (Instructor: If you’ve already covered concept mapping in the Note-Taking lesson, this is a quick refresher.) In addition to summarizing, some of you may want to use concept mapping. Concept mapping is laying out the main parts of a written piece in a visual way. It can help you see how different ideas fit together. You can map a chapter by showing the title, the main headings, the subheadings, and main points. You can do this to review a chapter that you’ve already read, or you could preview a chapter by quickly going through it and mapping headings. Setting up this preview map can help you better understand what you’re reading. Here, you’re not adding those linking verbs—this is a simpler map. What do you think? Is this something you might use? Main ideas/ Subheadings Supporting points, examples, definitions

Homework Write a summary of a text (to be handed out). If you’re reading a textbook, experiment with some of the methods we discussed, for your next reading assignment.