Listening and Notetaking

Reading

•    Burns and Sinfield (2016) Chapter 5 How to Make the Best Notes

•    Thomas Frank (2014) “How to Take Notes in Class” College Info Geek link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AffuwyJZTQQ

•    Jennifer Gonzalez (2018) “Notetaking: A Research Roundup.” Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/note-taking/  (available as a podcast at the link)

Overview of notetaking

Start with your course syllabus. If your final mark includes a significant exam component, then review notes for exams may be a priority.  If there is a large seminar component, then notes before the seminar will help you to participate effectively, and notes during and after the seminar will help you to meet the learning objectives.  Another reason to take notes is simply to stay focused. My mind wanders and taking notes (including comments on the material) helps me to stay focused.  

In this section, we’ll introduce some alternative notetaking styles and give you an opportunity to try them out on different kinds of material.

Note-taking styles

Thomas Frank (2014) “How to Take Notes in Class” College Info Geek link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AffuwyJZTQQ

1.    Outline: headings and bullet points. Works well with laptop, evernote, etc. But if you want to do this while in an online class, you might find two devices are better than one

2.    Cornell: Cue column, notetaking column, summary at the bottom. The key is to review

3.    Mind map: generally used for assignments, but might be helpful if the lecture is unstructured

4.    Flow: holistic, not about transcribing the lecture, but about learning as you listen

5.    Write on the slides:  laziest technique

The courses you will take at RMC are probably not designed as online courses. We are calling it “emergency remote teaching” rather than online or distance learning.  This means that the professors aren’t accustomed to teaching online and have not had time or technical assistance to develop all the support that is normally included in online teaching. You are likely to find yourself in a virtual classroom environment, and you might want to practice notetaking while using part of your screen to view a lecture.

Jennifer Gonzalez (2018) “Notetaking: A Research Roundup.” Cult of Pedagogy. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/note-taking/  (available as a podcast at the link)

What the research tells us about notetaking (best practices from research)

1.    Notetaking matters

2.    In General, more notes are better

3.    Explicitly teaching notetaking makes a difference

4.    Visuals improve the utility of notes (see video link about adding sketch-noting to Cornell)

5.    Revising, collaborating, and using breaks adds to the power of notes (ask your profs to pause while you catch up and look back over notes)

6.    Scaffolding or guided notes increases the effectiveness of notes.  If profs give you slides or lecture outlines in advance, this may be what they are trying to do for you – take the hint.

7.    Instructor notes can improve learning – these can take many forms – look for them in your course resources. You may get marks for participation – ask if notetaking and note-sharing counts (it should).

8.    Handwritten notes are better for getting into your brain (there’s a hand-eye-brain loop) but computer notes can be adjusted, fine-tuned, and used in different ways

Test alternative note-taking styles

Each of the following lectures is about an hour long and addresses a subject that is relevant to your upcoming studies. Try out at least three different note-taking systems and provide a short summary (as if you were preparing for a test) about the content and the context of the lecture. By context, I mean who is speaking, when, where, to what audience, and with what intent. Why is it posted online and how useful is it to you (don’t take my word for it that it is useful—that’s just my opinion).  I suggest if you have time you should try one from each category. You will find that the pace and delivery of each one is different, and what works to keep track of information in lectures with strong narrative flow (like Stevenson on WW1) may not work so well on information dense lectures (like Austin or Sapolsky) or panels with divergent views like the Policy Crunch panel.  Play with it a bit to get a sense of what works for you in different circumstances.

Pick a history lecture

•    Professor David Stevenson, “The Military History of the First World War: An Overview and Analysis”  (Gresham College) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMEFg_-26Ms

•    Margaret MacMillan: “The Road to 1914,” CBC The Agenda, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUmByAgc4YA

Pick an international relations lecture

•    Professor Ian Shapiro, Lecture 1: Introduction to Power and Politics in Today’s World, the 30 years since 1989 (Yale University)

•    Thomas Schuman, AKA Yuri Bezmenov (former KGB) “Understanding the Political Scenario” reposted from the 1980s by Amit Sengupta, political and human geography (independent) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9TviIuXPSE

Pick a Canadian Government lecture/panel/presentation

•    Panel by Policy Crunch, “Governments in transition: the COVID effect in Canada, the US and UK, Institute on Governance,” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_jiLGeOxvs  See also this useful site for any Canadian politics courses you might take  https://iog.ca

•    Chantal Hebert, “Can Quebec and Canada really get along? Journalist Chantal Hebert unpacks a loaded question” Annual Lecture in Journalism, Concordia University, 18 March 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuAG7NsnLjo

Pick a psychology lecture

•    John Austin, PhD “An Introduction to Organizational Behavior Management” Behaviour Analyst Certification Board, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwdRKbCa96U website https://www.bacb.com

•    Robert Sapolsky, “Introduction to Human Behavioral Biology,” Stanford University 29 March 2010  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA  See also the Stanford University Channel on YouTube, http://www.youtube.com/stanford

Review notes for exams

If you find yourself making review notes the night before an exam, you’re not going to get the most out of them. Early in the course—perhaps in the first class—you should look ahead to the exam if there is one. Look for examples from previous years (best if they are from the same professor). Ask about the format. Typically, in the social sciences and humanities senior course exams will consist of short answer and essay questions to test knowledge of facts and integration of material, or just essay answers. For take-home or out-of-hall exams, there may be only one essay answer required, with a 24-hour or 48-hour turnaround.

You can focus your exam studying and note preparation by going back to the objectives and content of the course and reflecting on the material most prominently covered or discussed in lectures and seminars. Profs want you to demonstrate what you have learned and relate your thinking about problems to the material on the course. We’ll look at this more in the module on exams and exam preparation.

Review notes for exams can be structured to cover the course materials (if the exam is a surprise) or answer the questions anticipated (if they are known in advance). Review notes, summary notes, and finding aids (like bookmarks and highlighting) are especially important in open-book/open-note exams, where time is at a premium.

Final word – all notetaking is iterative.  If you take notes and never look at them again, they will still be useful if they help you stay focused in class and absorb material. But you will get much more from the relatively small effort of revising and reviewing your notes with a view to using them for exams.

Next: seminars and presentations