Record, Reduce, Recite, Reflect, Review, Recapitulate

July 31, 2005 3:57 PM

Note-taking methods for students. Includes the Cornell method (details in powerpoint), and a Mapping powerpoint. [via GoBinder]
posted by iffley (12 comments total)

Thanks! It seems that the Cornell method really a container for the other methods. The other methods depend a lot on the kind of presentation being given, which could change from day to day in a given class. But I've also had a professor who ordered us not to take notes in class, so, so much for that.
posted by wobh at 5:01 PM on July 31, 2005

Ordered you not to take notes in class? Why? Because too many students were focused on frantically scribbling every word verbatim, or was it some other control freak reason?
posted by Liosliath at 5:27 PM on July 31, 2005

I'll occasionally tell students not to take notes for the next few minutes. For me, it means "I'm about to go into a technical explanation of why this works, which matters here because it can be counterintuitive. You don't need to remember why it works, at least not here. All you need to remember is that you were convinced that it does in fact work."
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:46 PM on July 31, 2005

zzzzzzzz
posted by Pacheco at 6:13 PM on July 31, 2005

I got kind of obsessive about taking detailed notes in college, to the point where i was densely covering pages with minute details barely large enough to read. It was almost an artistic urge, to make beautiful notebooks. Also, it is a nice substitute for thinking very hard about the meaning of what you're writing. I don't really understand general relativity, but my notes are fantastic.
posted by snoktruix at 6:50 PM on July 31, 2005

I have a technique, of sorts. I start with a nice clean stack of white paper, $5/ream printer paper, and a pencil. During the first five minutes I try to take notes, then I fill up the page with drawings of the people in the class, occasionally squeezing in notes if the prof says something noteworthy. I usually get through five sheets of notes in a class and they are more helpful than it might sound because I end up only jotting down the non-obvious or, depending on the subject, key-concepts. Except for when it fails me completely.
posted by Grod at 8:09 PM on July 31, 2005

This seems like a pretty nice method for large lecture hall classes but I'm skeptical about its effectiveness in a smaller discussion course.

For example, in a philosophy course the main benefit of going to class is having the chance to discuss various ideas and problems with the professor. If you are busy writing down as much information as you can, it becomes pretty hard to do this.
posted by oddman at 9:11 PM on July 31, 2005

Hmm, I usually scribbled in the margin of the textbook, wrote important bits on the teacher's lecture outline, or wrote stuff on the back of a moderately relevant handout.

Oh, and occasionally added rock lyrics or a picture of a unicorn.
posted by ilsa at 9:46 PM on July 31, 2005

If a professor fixes a concept within a nicely-wrought phrase, I'll jot it down as a way of appropriating its style into my vocabulary.

None of these systems seem to address that rare side effect of lectures, learning:

Say the cue out loud, then say as much as you can of the material underneath the card...If you can say it, you know it. [first link, my highlighting]

Really? Is it merely quaint of me to draw a distinction between knowing and parroting? I hope not.
posted by ori at 10:48 PM on July 31, 2005 [1 favorite]

"For example, in a philosophy course the main benefit of going to class is having the chance to discuss various ideas and problems with the professor. If you are busy writing down as much information as you can, it becomes pretty hard to do this."

Yeah. My Human Sexuality class would've been a nightmare using the cornell method.

Thank you though, I plan to try this out.
posted by Dean Keaton at 11:33 PM on July 31, 2005

ori writes "None of these systems seem to address that rare side effect of lectures, learning"

heh.

Nice links, thanks.
posted by OmieWise at 5:23 AM on August 1, 2005

I've never understood the note-rewriting people. I knew a girl once who came back from class and studiously rewrote all of her notes, so they would all be perfect and clean and whatever. Girl never got a grade higher than 75, as I recall.

Ideally, the lecture is already organized by the lecturer. All you need to do is capture the main points and some details so you'll remember it for the exam. What would be more useful than fussing about the style of students' notes would be a discussion of how to intuit the structure of the lecture from verbal cues.
posted by Hildegarde at 10:35 AM on August 1, 2005