Deep Learning Strategies Archives • TechNotes Blog

Wish you could empower and engage students with strategies that lead to long-term information retention? Outlining and summarizing is a strategy that assists students in learning new material and retaining it. Once students learn to read a text, watch a video, outline, and summarize, they will remember. As a deep learning strategy, outlining and summarizing assists students in connecting ideas. According to researchers, deep learning happens when learners make a conscious and explicit effort. That effort involves connecting “new knowledge to relevant concepts they already have.”

Outlining and Summarizing (d=0.62): This deep learning strategy involves students in identifying ideas. They identify the main ideas and render them in one’s own words. The core skill is being able to differentiate between main and supporting ideas.
Source: Visible Learning MetaX database

Let’s look at several deep learning activities you can complete with your students to boost retention using outlining and summarizing. But first, let’s look at the science behind it.

What Helps Us Remember and Retain

A key idea behind outlining and summarizing involves semantic processing or encoding. That is, translating what we experience through our senses into a meaningful connection. This connection, like a story you tell yourself about an event, aids in memory recall. When you outline, putting ideas into your own words, you are engaging in semantic encoding. Semantic encoding is the process of linking data and information to concepts and meanings. This improves understanding and recall.

“Memory is the residue of thought,” says Professor Daniel Willingham. To remember something better:

Think about it
Do something with the ideas (draw a diagram or a picture)
Write notes by hand to improve long-term information retention.

But what does “think about it” mean? Many students have no idea. If the goal is to remember information, you have to do something with it. That makes “thinking” a series of repeated actions that ensure long-term information retention. Want to ensure you never forget the code to your memory safe? Take one of these actions:

Read aloud, then get feedback from others (Repeated Reading)
Discuss with others (Classroom Discussion, Reciprocal Teaching, Jigsaw Method)
Clarify vocabulary and meaning (Vocabulary Programs)
Jot down important ideas and information (Outlining, Summarization, Concept Mapping)
Annotate your text, write in the margins (Underlining and Highlighting)
Interrogate text (ask questions and make a quiz for Retrieval Practice)

“Memories are stored in ensembles of neurons called ‘engram cells’, and successful recall of these memories involves the reactivation of these ensembles. The logical extension of this is that forgetting occurs when engram cells cannot be reactivated. The memories themselves are still there, but if the specific ensembles cannot be activated, they can’t be recalled. It’s as if the memories are stored in a safe but you can’t remember the code to unlock it.”
Source: Dr. Tomás Ryan, associate professor, School of Biochemistry & Immunology, & Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin

Now, let’s dive in to three activities that use outlining and summarizing to aid in retention.

Activity #1: Create a Reverse Outline

Reverse outlining instructions — Screenshot by Emily Horn: MGLead.org **Reverse Outline** Page

When you create a reverse outline, you are selecting key ideas in a reading selection. Only the sentences with key ideas will end up in your reverse outline. Cut away anything that isn’t relevant to the key sentence in a paragraph. If you can’t find a key sentence, ask yourself, “What is this paragraph about?” Then write a one-sentence summary of it. You can find some digital tools to support you, but one you could take advantage of is ChatGPT. If you have access to ChatGPT, you can ask it to make a reverse outline for you.

Example ChatGPT Prompt: Create a reverse outline of the following passage with Roman numerals, main ideas, and supporting details: Then paste in the text to be outlined.

Example Reverse Outline Created by the Author

Access Supporting Resources for Reverse Outlines

Activity #2: Cornell Note-Taking

Notes Organizer that accommodates Cornell Note-Taking, Jigsaw, and 3-2-1 in one document. Wow! — Author generated compilation of Cornell Notes, 3-2-1, and Jigsaw organizer

You may already be familiar with the Cornell Note-Taking method. The flexibility of the Cornell Notes format makes it one of the most important tools you can share. The Cornell Note-Taking process is straightforward:

Record your notes in your own words. Make an outline, draw a concept map, or a sketch a picture (sketch note).
Reduce your notes. Work on the cue column. Identify keywords and vocabulary. Write questions that trigger recall of ideas or use them to quiz yourself.
Recite and Reflect. Summarize key ideas from the cue section, drawing conclusions.
Review your notes. Spread out your study over several days or weeks rather than cramming them right before an event (e.g. test, quiz, project).

What’s more, there are many templates for Cornell Note-Taking online:

Paper versions

Google Docs

Microsoft OneNote

Example Cornell Notes for Outlining and Summarizing — Created by author

Activity #3: Concept Mapping

Concept maps like diagrams, mindmaps, and semantic webs can help you seize the chaotic energy of your mind by tapping into your generative power. You seek to reflect the constellations of thought and map them. There are benefits to this thought cartography. In an online compendium of research, the benefits of concept mapping are clear. These strategies have a thought-mapping component that requires students to recall information.

As I create a concept map, an outline, or take notes, I am full of questions that may include:

Should I build my understanding around this main idea?
Is this the main idea? What are the supporting or related concepts?
How do the main idea and the supporting ideas connect to what I already know?
How can I best represent or arrange ideas to reflect what I know and what I am learning?

This self-interrogation is ever-present and appears in all the strategies that involve diagramming and concept mapping. Paste in a text selection (200 or so words) to be turned into a concept map into yEd LIVE. yEd LIVE will use ChatGPT to summarize and create the map. Of course, it is more effective if students make the map and connect it to what they know.

yEd LIVE example dagram prompt — Screenshot by author, yEd LIVE

yEd LIVE Diagram — Screenshot by author, yEd LIVE AI-created map

Want to Learn More?

Want to learn more? Here is an infographic that can help you kick off your exploration.

Information on Outlining and Summarizing — Created by the author

Click here to make a copy!

Summarization and outlining are proven ways to help students retain information and learn deeply. These strategies can be used across a variety of subjects and content areas. Which of these activities will you use in your classroom? Leave us a comment to let us know how it goes.

Challenging circumstances aside, many educators continue to develop engaging lessons today. But how those lessons get delivered, facilitated, and assessed has changed for some. As I’ve shared before, the 5E Model remains a popular model to guide these instructional efforts. In this blog entry, let’s see how the model works with those teaching strategies that result in the highest achievement.

How does the 5E Model and high-effect size instructional strategies fit together?

Before answering that question, it is worth reflecting on the language of the 5E Model. It is also worth considering another question, “How do we use what we know of evidence-based strategies and when to use them to enhance the 5E Model?”

The Right Strategy and Learning Phase

Before looking at strategies, we first have to figure out when is it appropriate to use a particular strategy. Consider this point adapted for readability from Hattie, Fisher, and Frey:

What and when are important when it comes to instruction that has an impact on learning. Approaches that aid surface-level learning do not work as well for deep learning….

Match the right approach with the correct phase of learning.” Adapted from Source: Hattie, Fisher, and Frey (Visible Learning for Mathematics, 2017)

These phases of learning include surface, deep, and transfer learning. Here’s one way of understanding these strategies:

Surface learning strategies: Content focused
Deep learning strategies: Relationship in and among contents
Transfer learning strategies: Transfer of newly acquired skills to new situations or tasks

If you’re not already familiar with learning strategies, you might want to take one of our online, self-paced courses on them. The Strategies That Work, Part 2: Surface Learning Strategies course is based on Hattie’s work and designed to help you select the best instructional strategies for each lesson. You can learn more about it (and Part 1) at TCEA.org’s Courses page.

Juxtaposing Strategies with 5E

The 5E Model often presents as an inquiry-based model. Inquiry-based teaching, according to the Visible Learning Meta X database, has an effect size of 0.46 and is described thusly:

Inquiry-based teaching is an educational practice where students assume a role. That role involves behaving as scientists or philosophers. They generate questions and seek to develop answers through the accumulation of evidence. This could include asking questions and solving problems. It often includes procedures such as small-scale investigations and practical projects (adapted from VisibleLearningMetaX).

I marvel that the 5E Model, as an inquiry-based teaching and learning strategy, has an effect size of 0.46. I have to ask myself, “How could we use the 5E Model to better effect?” One approach might involve relying on surface learning strategies (SLSs) that would introduce students to concepts. The use of Direct Instruction (d=0.59) and flipped learning could serve as two other strategies. Or we could rely on the jigsaw method (d=1.20). But what if I wanted the whole of student learning to fit inside of the 5E model?

Is it possible to align the right instructional strategy with the learning phase in the 5E model? That is, what strategy would work best with ENGAGE? Would it be a surface learning strategy or deep learning? To figure this out, let’s look at the 5E Model a bit more.

The 5E Model with the Right Strategy

One of the challenges is figuring out how to blend the right learning phase, strategy, and 5E stage. In this Google Slides document, I try to explain it better.

View in Google Slides | Get a copy | Learn How to Make a Copy

As you consider embracing the 5E Model, rely on strategies that match the phase of learning. A great follow-up blog entry you may want to review is The 5E Model vs Explicit Instruction. And you can also learn more about surface, deep, and transfer learning strategies in the Coaching for Results series.

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Image by author.

Deep Learning Strategies

Three Engaging Activities for Outlining and Summarizing