Notes are an essential part of your study. They massively enhance your knowledge retention and understanding. Let’s have a brief look at why, what and how to make notes.
Why making notes is essential
Making notes condenses your knowledge, helps aid your understanding and memory and improves your eventual grade.
When sat in a class, listening to your teacher, your brain can only retain so much information no matter how hard you try. This is called cognitive load.
Cognitive Load
Cognitive load refers to the amount of mental effort or processing power required to complete a task or activity. It is the total amount of information that a person needs to process and the processes required to understand the information.
Our aim is to reduce the amount of information lost as our brain desperately tries to keep the relevant stuff from the class or tutorial video.
The way to do this is to offload the key information onto paper. This way, your brain can focus on the next thing being said. The answer, in short, is note taking.
What your notes should look like
First, a few general rules of thumb on how to make notes:
Use headings
- This helps you to frame and organise your notes
Use your own words
- This means you take ownership over your learning
Summarise
- Take the overall message of a piece of speech then make your own summary
Make connections
- Think of other parts of the course the new material relates to
There are, broadly, two types of note taking that you need to keep in mind. Both are extremely useful, and have their place in your study.
The traditional note taking structure. It follows the course of the lesson or tutorial video. Excellent for gathering new information.
Examples are spider diagrams and flowcharts. Used after the lesson or tutorial video. Useful for reviewing the content and connecting concepts.
Reviewing your notes
Taking notes doesn’t end when the lesson or tutorial video finishes. So far, you’ve collected the information, but you haven’t transformed it into knowledge yet.
That’s where reviewing comes in. When you find some time, take your notes out again and try one of these:
Re-write them into patterned notes
Write a summary of the notes
This way, you will end up with excellent notes that you truly know and understand. This is how you gain knowledge from a class or tutorial video.
