Note taking is one of the most essential and impactful skills. Writing down notes helps you to keep a record of the information that you’ve just heard as well as make you more organized when you’re going through the learning material for an upcoming test / just for a recap of the topic.
Taking efficient notes is not active but it is passive. Active learning helps you to make meaning from what you learn: passive learning is allowing yourself to be an empty vessel into which knowledge is poured with no way of organizing or making meaning from it.
Taking effective notes makes us;
More alert - It keeps your body active and helps you pay more attention in class instead of feeling sleepy or bored
More organized - With this study material we can prepare for our exams and use the classroom information to link it with the textbook information
More attentive - While taking down notes in class, we tend to listen and try to understand our teacher better
Less cluttered thoughts - When we go through our notes we can refresh our memory of what we’ve learnt in that day’s learning objective
Academic validation - When we look at our notes, we understand that we thoroughly tried to get into a deeper understanding of the learning objective and feel more confident about the said topic
For note-taking there are two ways where we can be benefitted: in class benefits and post class benefits. Usually before the session begins we might go through a video or a PowerPoint just to go through the learning objective of that day’s class. Before the lecture starts on said topic, we could take key points from the resources given before so that we can avoid taking in a block of information at once. Having prior knowledge can also help us be more active in the class discussions.
Once the session is done, it is important to go back and revise what was done that day so that when the exams are coming up, we have an understanding of most of the syllabus.
Taking notes on both synchronous and asynchronous material will help you better remember what you hear and see.
While taking notes, we can follow some methods that make our notes more comprehensible as well as make us listen actively and think critically. Just noting down what the teacher is saying without understanding won't make the notes efficient.
Some of the note taking methods are;
The Cornell Method
The Outline Method
The Mapping Method
The Sentence Method
There are two types of note taking: handwritten notes and digital Notes
There is a constant debate on whether handwritten or digital notes are more efficient but there are individual differences that affect which method is the best for you. Research suggests that handwritten notes are more efficient but there are many pros for digital notes as well!
Making your notes aesthetic and pleasing to your eyes gives you motivation to continue to maintain your notebook like that, so that further throughout the year your notebook will be neat and well-maintained.
To conclude, taking down notes is a very crucial skill that we build throughout our schooling years and knowing how to take proper and well organized notes will make us understand a topic better in class as well as when we’re revising. So, It’s a helping tool to be better at understanding a learning object in class and earning straight A’s!
( Tvesa Putcha. )
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