One of the more aggravating things that occurs is when I am asked how to take notes while at a lecture. I say it more times than not during my Note taking lectures that you have to read the material before hand. I guess the students and even the adults have a little problem doing their home work.
Reading any material assigned by the teacher is the lynchpin to successful class note taking. How can you know when material us presented that is new or different from the material in the book? You can study the book, but if the teacher presents something new or different, they are going to test over that information. In fact I can almost guarantee that the teacher will have a question or two over information they presented that was different from the material in the reading.
So, the first step in successful classroom note taking is reading the assigned material. The other is to listen to the lecture. You should know what is in the reading. In fact you might want to bring along the notes from the reading. The other thing that’s important is to get from the teacher what they think is important. They signal this in several ways.
The first way they signal this is by emphasizing with their voice; either louder, slower, or even the phrase this is important. Teacher’s know what’s on the upcoming test. It’s human nature to emphasize what might be on the test when you know what’s on a test.
Another form of emphasis is to write something on the board. Why write it on the board unless it is important, important enough on which to test. A similar kind of emphasis is the nervous tick. Getting up in front of people and speaking on a topic of which you know so much is still a bit unnatural. Some teachers develop what I like to call a nervous tick when they present information that is important. Some will tap on the board with the chalk or their white board marker. Watch for these things.
One last thing.
Always take notes in your own words. If there is a word the teacher uses that is unknown to you. Write it down separately. Then look it up. Add that word and the definition to a notebook dedicated to vocabulary. By doing this you make the information yours, including the new word. In your vocabulary notebook make sure you use the word in a sentence of your own making. Again it reinforces ownership of the new word and concept.
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