Students in courses with guided note-taking and other active learning activities reported less difficulty with motivation and engagement after the shift online¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · qualitative r2 · q1
Currency · newest study 2020 · checked against its sources 2026-10-20 (automated, 1 of 1 entry) · not reviewed by a person
Evidence quality · No study behind this claim is a peer-reviewed article with a DOI: it rests on a source with no registered publication record (a web page, book or unpublished report). It is kept because 2 design pages cite it; treat it as a lead to check, not an established finding.

Subclaims¶

q1 i? Focus group students in courses incorporating guided note-taking or other active learning activities during lectures did not report the same level of difficulty with motivation or staying engaged as other students. → Means 2020

Evidence¶

Means 2020¶

Means, B., Peters, V., Neisler, J., & Griffiths, R. (2020). STEM Courses During the COVID Pandemic: Lessons from Spring 2020. Digital Promise Global. https://digitalpromise.dspacedirect.org/items/7900cb79-6ea5-44d0-aad6-34aa81e9bf4b

q1 · i? · qualitative · r2

Qualitative case studies of 28 STEM courses at nine institutions; interviews and focus groups with 92 students. Instructors assigned for-credit guided lecture outlines submitted as attendance; one biology instructor said the assignment "went from passive to active."

"Focus group students in courses incorporating guided note-taking or other active learning activities during lectures did not report the same level of difficulty with motivation or staying engaged that other students did."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• Prior use of adaptive courseware in blended STEM courses eased the transition to fully remote instruction for instructors and students — related
• Opportunities for peer collaboration largely disappeared when STEM courses went remote, with few instructors sustaining collaborative activities online — reports the opposite
• Guided Notes Improve Note Accuracy — related
• Active Learning Improves Exam Performance — a broader claim this one bears on
• Hispanic and low-income students reported more challenges and technology problems after the shift online than non-Hispanic White and higher-income peers; rural students did not differ — related
• Students reported that long recorded lectures impeded focus, and one student appreciated an instructor's choice to break lectures into shorter videos — related
• Staying motivated was the most pervasive challenge of learning remotely, and students missed instructor feedback, peer collaboration, and hands-on experiences — related
• Teachers valued interactive discussion-based training but identified unfamiliarity with online resources as a challenge when transitioning to distance learning. — related
• QR faculty on several CSU campuses are incorporating active-learning and problem-solving pedagogies into redesigned entry-level math courses — related
• Teachers reported that simulations, adaptive feedback, and hands-on STEM activities supported students' conceptual understanding and engagement with scientific problem solving — related
• Changing activities during lessons improves student attention during the activity and subsequent lecture segments — related
• Recorded lectures are a controversial accessibility strategy: faculty cite decimated attendance and poorer grades, while acknowledging benefits for some student groups — related
• An estimated one-third of students fail to learn because of psychosocial problems that interfere with engagement in instruction — related
• In case-study courses that shifted to remote instruction, few instructors offered collaborative learning activities, and some dropped ones used before — related