NOTE TAKING IN LECTURES-PRACTISING STRATEGIES

NOTE TAKING IN LECTURES-PRACTISING STRATEGIES ROBERT BLAKE Effective Learning Programme for International Students, Student Learning Development Centre

Note Taking In Lectures: practising Strategies- outline This session will help you with ways of recording what you hear in lectures: • A strategy for listening & taking notes in lectures • How to lay out notes • How to use symbols and abbreviations • Questions for clarifying points for note taking

Practising Note Taking Strategies- Introduction Taking notes in lectures can be a difficult experience. One student commented: ‘We have lecturers who talk at us non-stop, scribbling stuff on the whiteboard all the time, and we’re still trying to get it down minutes after they’ve left the room…’ [quotation from Rowntree, slightly adapted 1998:119]

Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- Introduction What has your experience been of lectures so far? How successfully have you been able to take notes? Has Powerpoint been used in your classes? Has it helped you to take better notes?

Practising Note Taking Strategies in Lectures- Introduction How can we take more effective notes from lectures, whether Powerpoint based or not?

Practising Note Taking- SQL2R • To use lectures creatively, a balance between listening carefully and taking notes is needed. One way to take more effective notes in lectures is to adapt the SQ3R strategy used for effective reading [Survey, Question, Read, Recall, Review] to SQL2R: • Surveying • Questioning • Listening & Note taking • Recall • Review

Practising Note Taking Strategies- Surveying Surveying: listening for signposting. Signposting language explains the overall structure of the lecture, and how the parts of the talk are structured. Surveying the lecture for signposting signals can help you plan the layout of your notes. In Powerpoint based lectures it involves surveying the overall structure from the handout.

Practising Note Taking Strategies: Surveying-Signposting Some examples of signposting language I’ll begin by Well, The first of these settings, One of the key questions So now we’ve come to …. To sum up, what we’ve looked at so far

Practising Note Taking Strategies- Questioning Along with surveying, questioning can be helpful: Before the lecture, ask: -What do I want to get out of this lecture? -How does it fit in with the course? -What do I already know about this topic?

Practising Note Taking Strategies- Questioning During the lecture ask yourself: - what are the main points? - What clues is the lecture giving about what is follow e.g. ‘There are 3 main theories….’ - What is informative? - What is analytical? - What is the lecturer's opinion?

Practising Note Taking Strategies- Recall & Review After the lecture remember to Recall & Review. Unless you have a superb memory, you’ll forget much of what you’ve heard & made notes on, So it’s necessary to find ways of recalling

Practising Note Taking Strategies- recall Quickly draw a quick mind map, spider diagram or flow chart summarising what you remember – • What are the main points?

Practising Note Taking Strategies: Review Review involves assessing how well you’ve been able to remember the lecture information during recall • Make questions about the parts you couldn’t remember. • Review your notes to answer the questions & fill in the gaps. • Make a list of those bits you did not understand & reread your notes to understand

Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of notes You can record your notes in a number of ways including: • Linear notes • Flow diagrams • Mind maps

Practising Note Taking Strategies- types of notes You can record your notes in a number of ways including: • Linear notes: with headings & sub-headings; points are numbered sequentially • Flow diagrams: suit logical thinkers • Mind maps: suit visual thinkers. Put the lecture topic & aspects of the topic branching off from the central point See slide 17 for an example.

Practising Note Taking Strategies- linear notes An example of Linear notes: Taking notes from lectures • Prepare for the lecture • Use tape/buddy + good note taking • Look for organisation clues from lecturer Taking notes from readings • Know what you want from the reading • Look for organisation clues from headings, sections, paragraphs • Don’t write down examples • SQ3R Approach • Survey – flip through & layout • Question – structure and relevance • Read – twice through quickly • Recall – main points, facts & biblio. Details • Review – repeat steps & relate to task Example from Exeter University Web site http://www.ex.ac.uk/dll/studyskills/note_taking_appendix_a.htm

Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notes An example of notes in the form of a mind map from Tony Buzan. Note the use of colour & space http://www.mind-map.com/EN/mindmaps/how_to.html

Practising Note Taking Strategies- flow diagram notes An example of notes in the form of a flow diagram Liverpool Hope University http://www.hope.ac.uk/gnu/stuhelp/notes4.htm#Note

Listening To Lectures: Note taking Useful lecture notes reflect the structure of a lecture by marking out the: • Introduction • Main points • Sub-points • Supporting detail • References

Practising Note Taking Strategies- mind map notes You can use subordination to identify the importance of information: • key information on the left hand side • detailed points in the middle • comments & questions on the right hand side

Note Taking Strategies- lecture details Also record on each page: • Course title- abbreviations • Lecture title • Lecturer name or Initials • Date • Page number • Sub topic? [Helps you locate topics] This can help you to avoid plagiarism & keep track of your notes 6 months on

Note Taking In Lectures- Symbols & abbreviations Symbols & abbreviations can save you valuable time: enabling you to write less & identify the main points more efficiently. • reducing the time you take writing notes • therefore giving you more time to understand lecture contents & to concentrate on the main points of the lecture • help you to take notes using you own words

e.g. for example i.e. that is etc. etcetera: and so on N.B. note Q. question No. number probs. problems p./pp page/pages 1st first max. maximum c. about/approximately ref. reference thro‘/thru through imp important sit. situation eval evaluation analy analysis diff/diff.y difficult/difficulty diff.t different Note Taking In Lectures-using abbreviations

Note Taking In Lectures-using symbols What symbols would you use for? therefore because statement/answer is correct statement/answer is wrong question; is the statement correct? or (this/that = this or that) and/plus ditto (means the same as the words immediately above the ditto marks) does not equal, differs from, is the opposite of is/are/have/has/equals leads to/results in/causes does not lead to/result in/cause

Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarification To take notes more effectively you may need, if the lecturer allows, to ask questions for clarification Think of some questions that you can ask to make a lecturer easier to understand

Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarification • I’m afraid I didn’t follow your point about…Could you go over that again? • Could you go over [again] what you said about .. • Could you explain what you meant when you said that …? • Could you be more specific about..? • Could you expand a little on what you said about…?

Note Taking In Lectures-asking for clarification • Could you give an example of … • Sorry/I’m afraid I didn’t catch what you say about.. • Sorry you speak a little louder please? • Sorry could you speak a little more slowly please? • Sorry to interrupt, could I ask a question about ..

Note Taking In Lectures - further help For further help, see Andy Gillett’s excellent UEFAP site at http://www.lancs.ac.uk/depts/celt/sldc/ materials/lectures.htm Look under structure, to see many examples of language lecturers use to structure their talks and exercises. See also the SLDC web pages on ‘What am I getting from lectures’ http://www.uefap.co.uk/listen/listfram.htm

NOTE TAKING IN LECTURES-PRACTISING STRATEGIES