SLS-Summarization
Strategy: Summarization (.74)
Digital Tools
In Matching HES Strategies and Digital Tools, find other ed tech tools to pair with summarization. Here’s a quick list:
Digital Annotation Tools
Highlight the Relevant/Irrelevant
Summarization enjoys an effect size of .74, the same as reciprocal teaching. This makes it a powerful tool for teachers. It is more powerful as a self-regulation strategy for students. Summarization allows students to control their own learning.
The ability to summarize a text is often taken as a marker of reading comprehension. For this reason, many scholars have advocated explicit summarization training. For students who struggle with comprehension, explicit summarization training is a recommended.
Summarization isn’t only about finding what’s worth keeping. It can also be about deleting unnecessary material, or material that is redundant.
The act of summarizing can involve substituting a subordinate term for a list of items. It can also have students selecting a topic sentence. Students may construct a topic sentence if one is only suggested in a text
Summarization works as a powerful, surface learning strategy. Combine it with a digital tool to move beyond paper and pencil activities and end up with greater engagement and retention.
Summarization, a surface learning strategy, works great for introducing students to new learning. Remote learning educators are relying on a variety of tools. One clear favorite is Flipgrid.com. Here’s what educators are saying about this digital tool:
“I plan on using FlipGrid. Students submit timed audio submissions of them synthesizing the info.”
“Students need a lot of practice with summary. I use summary and Flipgrid to empower students. Students can create a summary of a text. Then they critique the summaries of others to determine who had the best summary. It also gives students the benefit of hearing the information several times as well.”
Selecting text is one way to summarize:
“The HESIS I will use is Summarizing. I will use KAMI to present a text as it allows students to highlight key terms. I will have students share the key terms they highlighted. Then, they will discuss why they selected the terms they chose. As a continuation, students share their summaries aloud.
“I could use summarization. Then, I would ask students to use Buncee. They would use it to share their thoughts and notes over the topic,” says another teacher.
Students can learn to use Buncee to summarize the main ideas of a text in audio format. What is exciting is that students can also use Buncee as a tool for collaboration. They can incorporate video, audio, and other multimedia. View an example
Diigo, a tool free for educators, makes it easy to annotate and add comments to web pages. You can share your annotations/comments with others and can also do the following:
- Use the highlighting to select the important and irrelevant
- Highlight critical features of text (essential text or text to NOT read)
Other benefits:
Ask students to define words, terms, or concepts in their own words/language
Provide definitions of difficult/new terms
Mark up online text with comments, observations, and corrections
Add bookmarks for the students to interact with
Add sticky notes like a word processor Track Changes feature
- Use "Highlight Tool" for additional highlighting needs in Google Documents.
- Create and edit customized highlighters that automatically save.
- Use these highlighters to highlight selected text.
- Export the highlighted text to a separate document by sequence or by color.
