Ever find yourself sitting in a class next to this guy:
On the little scrap of a desk he has a tape recorder, the text book open where he stops to furiously take anything anyone says about anything, and a latop where he desperately tries to capture every word anyone speaks? You’ll recognize him by the strain on his face, like he’s passing a stone, and the desperate fear in his eyes.
I call this note overkill. Don’t get me wrong, if you want to tape record class or take careful notes - that’s your business, we all learn differently and far be it from me to tell you what you must or must not do.
But taking good notes doesn’t mean writing every word down. In fact, I’d say those are terrible notes.
How this pattern is destructive
- When you are taking notes like this you aren’t really “listening.” Which means, as you mechanically try to get every “uh” written down, you are losing a great opportunity to absorb some of the content and ride the thinking process out with the class. Listening to it on a tape is hardly the same thing. Why? Well, for one thing you can’t ask questions or potentially steer the lecture in a direction more helpful to you!
- If you create a mass of notes that covers everything, how do you know what to study? How do you determine what is important? Sure, I suggest meta-notes for the best note-takers, but you’d have to edit these down before you could even do that.
- The stress! To learn best your mind must be agile and relaxed so you can start making those necessary cognitive connections between what you know and what you’re learning. Stress interferes with your ability to perform at your best.
What you can do to help your own process:
1) If you are worried about missing something important go ahead and get a recorder. This is a good back up, and it never hurts to listen to the lecture again (after you’ve participated in it!)
2) Before attending a class where you’ll be getting a lot of new information vollyed at you, stop on a bench and take a few moments to still your mind (The Virtue of Stopping). The Vietnamese Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, puts it well in The Heart of the Buddha’s Teaching:
“We have to learn the art of stopping - stopping our thinking, our habit energies, our forgetfulness, the strong emotions thar rule us. When an emotion rushes through us like a storm, we have no peace. We turn on the TV and then we turn it off. We pick up a book and then we put it down. How can we stop this state of agitation? How ccan we stop our fear, despair, anger, and craving? We can stop by practicing mindful breathing, mindful walking, mindful smiling, and deep looking in order to understand.“
That may sound a bit esoteric to some of you, but try it sometime. It helps.
3) See if you can get your instructor to help you out by providing the general notes before class - this way you can simply add commentary as you go. We went over this some time ago in Picture Perfect Pedagoguery.
4) Be prepared!! Read whatever text you’re supposed to have read, and bring it with you. Read actively, take notes as you . You won’t have to worry about catching it all if you’ve already caught a lot of it before even showing up! Here’s some posts to help with that: On Reading & On Reading, Part II, Are You a Productive Reader (thatcollegekid.com), How To Read Hard Readings (Study Hacks).
17/01/2008 at 11:29 am Permalink
Yeah, you definitely should takes notes before a lecture, also, actively listening and absorbing things helps you remember them. I usually just sit there and listen actively and add whatever was important to my notes after class.