Teaching your kids to take notes

[happycc]

How did you teach your kids to take notes ....preparing for college.

Notes on Sermons, videos, DVD's etc?

 

How did you go about teaching this skill?

 

Did you use a book?

 

I am terrible about taking notes. I tend to write everything down. I then fall behind and start writing random words and when I look back at them later, they make no sense. That was the worst for me while in College.

[regentrude]

I am firmly in the learning-by-doing camp.

First I had them take notes from textbooks when we started high school level history and science. I let them work out a system of their own, but would in the beginning check over their notes, point out where they wrote too much, where they wrote too little. The goal, I told them, was to have enough in the notes to be able to study from the notes without textbook - but not too much. Use structure (bullet points, arrows, tables) and color (colored writing, underlining, bullet points) as additional help.

 

For lectures, I simply waited till DD audited her first college lecture at age 13. Usually the instructor will have some sort of visual, either slides, or write something on the board. Whatever is on the board is the important stuff that must be written down. Then add in as much of what the prof says as possible.

When I look at my own college notes, I always had everything that was written on the board in the body of the page, and in smaller writing in the margin any clarifying remarks the professor made in addition to the main points. I learned it by doing it. (My first two years, I wrote the board stuff in pen and the extra notes in pencil; later I switched to pencil only)

 

Taking notes in situations entirely without visuals is not something that occurs very often in my experience (do people really take notes during sermons???)

This is also the reason I do not consider the TC lectures a suitable tool for learning to take notes, because there is absolutely nothing written down that could provide a skeletal framework to support the student's notes.

[history_junkie]

 

Taking notes in situations entirely without visuals is not something that occurs very often in my experience (do people really take notes during sermons???)

This is also the reason I do not consider the TC lectures a suitable tool for learning to take notes, because there is absolutely nothing written down that could provide a skeletal framework to support the student's notes.

 

 

Absolutely! Sermons are very good practice.

 

I had a huge number of college classes that had no visuals at all (and I just graduated in 2012). I had several professors who sat at a table and faced us, and did almost no writing on the board, let alone use a power point. In fact, most of these classes depended on extensive notes. I always have to go back and reorganize my notes, and they are not in outline form, but they helped me and I was often asked to share them with other students. In college, almost all of my notes were taken on my laptop.

 

Actually, visuals can sometimes hinder note taking because the student thinks that only the PPT is important. The students I tutored often had this problem.

 

I think Mom used some IEW with us in jr. high....

[regentrude]

 

Absolutely! Sermons are very good practice.

 

I had a huge number of college classes that had no visuals at all (and I just graduated in 2012). I had several professors who sat at a table and faced us, and did almost no writing on the board, let alone use a power point. In fact, most of these classes depended on extensive notes. I always have to go back and reorganize my notes, and they are not in outline form, but they helped me and I was often asked to share them with other students. In college, almost all of my notes were taken on my laptop.

 

 

I guess it varies extremely by discipline.

i am a physicist, and it would be impossible to lecture by talking and not writing stuff on the board. I never had a single lecture in college where the prof did not write.

As an instructor myself, among the several thousand students I taught, I can count on one hand the number who used a laptop for notetaking in class. The arrival of the tablet may change that now.

[history_junkie]

I guess it varies extremely by discipline.

i am a physicist, and it would be impossible to lecture by talking and not writing stuff on the board. I never had a single lecture in college where the prof did not write.

As an instructor myself, among the several thousand students I taught, I can count on one hand the number who used a laptop for notetaking in class. The arrival of the tablet may change that now.

 

 

Of course. My husband is a math professor and he would agree with you. You will find a lot more variance within the Humanities.

[happycc]

Was is TC lectures?

[quark]

I think she meant Teaching Company lectures.

thegreatcourses.com

[happycc]

Wasnt there a notetaking skills book/workbook sugggested in the well trained mind 3rd edition? Does anyone know?

 

Or maybe that was outlining?

 

 

Ok someone on this post who responded to the post of "What would you do differently if your child were 12yrs old" and she listed notetaking skills beginning at 6th grade.

 

Can someone expound on that more? Other than sermons and TC videos anything else?

 

Yes I have seen people take notes during sermons. In fact many church bulletins have a blank page just to note take and some even have outlines. It takes the pastors scripted sermon and has fill in the blanks for certain words/points to make sure people are engaged and listening. I learned a lot from these actually otherwise my head is spinning and thinking about what to make for dinner. Some even have the bulletin note section hole punched so you can save them for future reference.

 

Oh when I went back to college for another degree--powerpoints came out. We printed the powerpoints out before class and took notes directly on those pages adding in anything that wasn;t already printed.

 

When I got my own laptop, I just got on the powerpoint on line and edited the notes I believe. Has things changed since 6yrs ago or so?

[JuanitaL]

Team Policy Debate - they're learning by doing. They have to figure out how to take quick, detailed notes in order to cross-examine and then respond to the other team's arguments.

[swimmermom3]

Wasnt there a notetaking skills book/workbook sugggested in the well trained mind 3rd edition? Does anyone know?

 

Or maybe that was outlining?

 

 

Ok someone on this post who responded to the post of "What would you do differently if your child were 12yrs old" and she listed notetaking skills beginning at 6th grade.

 

Can someone expound on that more? Other than sermons and TC videos anything else?

 

Yes I have seen people take notes during sermons. In fact many church bulletins have a blank page just to note take and some even have outlines. It takes the pastors scripted sermon and has fill in the blanks for certain words/points to make sure people are engaged and listening. I learned a lot from these actually otherwise my head is spinning and thinking about what to make for dinner. Some even have the bulletin note section hole punched so you can save them for future reference.

 

Oh when I went back to college for another degree--powerpoints came out. We printed the powerpoints out before class and took notes directly on those pages adding in anything that wasn;t already printed.

 

When I got my own laptop, I just got on the powerpoint on line and edited the notes I believe. Has things changed since 6yrs ago or so?

 

The third edition of The Well-Trained Mind provides two sections that are helpful in introducing your student to the note-taking process. If you have a younger student or one who is new to note-taking, the fifth grade section on 278-280 shows the student how to pick out the main point of each paragraph of the reading. This is a critical note-taking skill. For more detailed instruction on outlining, see pages 297- 301. I had initially picked up another resource early in middle school, one that Susan Wise Bauer actually recommended, but we quickly found that her instructions for outlining worked well for us and that was all my youngest son needed - well, that and a lot of practice picking out the main point and then the supporting details. The work that TWTM suggests is helpful in both the note-taking process and the writing process.

 

In 8th grade, my son used one of K12's Human Odyssey history texts. He was ready to work on more advanced note-taking but not quite ready for a college text. The beauty of the K12 texts is that they are not dumbed down. There are no yellow highlighted words to set off important points and not every paragraph has a sub-head. Many of the modern middle school and high school texts point out all the obvious information to the student to the point they do not have to engage with the text. They barely even have to read it. This shouldn't be your goal. Human Odyssey provided a nice transition for ds taking notes from college-level and Advanced Placement texts for this year as a ninth grader. For 8th grade, he also took notes from his science and math texts; however, he does not have me for either of those courses this year.

 

For the homeschooled student, I believe it is important to provide audio opportunities to take notes as well, because that is similar to the college format. Many of the lecture series for open courses do show the professors writing some sort of visual on the board. The pacing can be intense so you may want to practice with shorter Youtube lectures. You could use the Crash Course history videos, but again he goes really fast. It's good to work up to it. I use the Teaching Cpompany lectures a lot ans usually will provide a copy of the lecture from the coursebook. My student highlights the main points as they crop up in the lecture. Also, some of the lecturers still add extra information, so I expect ds to write that in the margins.

[MomsintheGarden]

I take notes on my pastor's sermon every week, so I believe that comparing notes with my children is one good way to work on teaching notetaking. My pastor rarely uses visuals, and it works for me to take notes.

 

That said, my dd and ds are both in college. They learned to take notes in a sporadic way in high school, mostly through IEW and taking notes in texts for AP exams. I didn't use a step-by-step program, but am thinking of being more deliberate with my youngers.

 

In college, ds prefers to take notes on his tablet computer (not an iPad, but a computer with a flip-and-turn screen). He's the only one of his friends who does this. He uses his professor's powerpoints as well. His majors, CS and math, are very experiential, so I don't think notetaking was as critical for him as other fields. He learned best by doing problems and programming.

 

Dd is in biochem and math, and the biochem is extremely memory-intensive. It is not just memorizing formulas, but processes and also a synthesis of problems, reactions, and research findings. She has a multipronged approach to studying and notetaking that works:

1. She and all of her friends have digital recorders. They record all lectures in their difficult classes, such as biochem and other upper level bio and chem classes. She listens (and relistens) to her recorded lectures while jogging.

2. She takes notes by hand in class. She has a tablet computer as well as ds, but prefers the kinesthetic experience of notetaking on paper. She did take notes on her tablet for o-chem and enhanced and tidied them up for the professor to distribute to future classes as an honors project, but she believes the pencil-to paper works best for making connections in her brain.

3. After each biochem lecture, dd copies all of her professor's powerpoints onto paper using different colors of ink. She makes elaborate notes on each powerpoint copy. They end up looking like works of art. Many of her friends do this, too. She loves the uniball fine point colored gel pens.

 

Not every class is going to require amount of effort dd takes in her biochem courses, but I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what works on the elaborate end of things.

 

HTH,

GardenMom

[swimmermom3]

I take notes on my pastor's sermon every week, so I believe that comparing notes with my children is one good way to work on teaching notetaking. My pastor rarely uses visuals, and it works for me to take notes.

 

That said, my dd and ds are both in college. They learned to take notes in a sporadic way in high school, mostly through IEW and taking notes in texts for AP exams. I didn't use a step-by-step program, but am thinking of being more deliberate with my youngers.

 

In college, ds prefers to take notes on his tablet computer (not an iPad, but a computer with a flip-and-turn screen). He's the only one of his friends who does this. He uses his professor's powerpoints as well. His majors, CS and math, are very experiential, so I don't think notetaking was as critical for him as other fields. He learned best by doing problems and programming.

 

Dd is in biochem and math, and the biochem is extremely memory-intensive. It is not just memorizing formulas, but processes and also a synthesis of problems, reactions, and research findings. She has a multipronged approach to studying and notetaking that works:

1. She and all of her friends have digital recorders. They record all lectures in their difficult classes, such as biochem and other upper level bio and chem classes. She listens (and relistens) to her recorded lectures while jogging.

2. She takes notes by hand in class. She has a tablet computer as well as ds, but prefers the kinesthetic experience of notetaking on paper. She did take notes on her tablet for o-chem and enhanced and tidied them up for the professor to distribute to future classes as an honors project, but she believes the pencil-to paper works best for making connections in her brain.

3. After each biochem lecture, dd copies all of her professor's powerpoints onto paper using different colors of ink. She makes elaborate notes on each powerpoint copy. They end up looking like works of art. Many of her friends do this, too. She loves the uniball fine point colored gel pens.

 

Not every class is going to require amount of effort dd takes in her biochem courses, but I thought I'd give you a glimpse of what works on the elaborate end of things.

 

HTH,

GardenMom

 

 

It's funny about the colored pens but my dd did the same thing for her AP European History class. I recently went through all her notes in preparation for the youngest taking the course and her pages were amazing. She said the colors really help her to remember the material.

[history_junkie]

 

It's funny about the colored pens but my dd did the same thing for her AP European History class. I recently went through all her notes in preparation for the youngest taking the course and her pages were amazing. She said the colors really help her to remember the material.

 

I do some things with colored pens and highlighters. For me, where the notes are in space really helps me remember. For a Constitutional Law class, a friend and I spread all of our notecards (upwards of 50) on the floor in a very specific pattern, organizing them according to relationship :-)

[AMJ]

 

This is also the reason I do not consider the TC lectures a suitable tool for learning to take notes, because there is absolutely nothing written down that could provide a skeletal framework to support the student's notes.

 

 

By "TC" you mean the Teaching Company (The Great Courses), correct?

 

If so, then I disagree a bit -- it seems lectures on DVD (audio & visual) or CD (audio only) would be good practice for learning note-taking during lectures. Some of the DVD courses do have visuals, so when they come up the student can practice learning what to write down for them. The student can also practice listening while looking, managing to get information from both (which is harder for some people than for others, so practice is good).

 

When starting out the student and/or parent/instructor can pause the recording to discuss good notes to write down, how to summarize (not write every detail or spoken word), and how to note references to check later or questions to ask at an appropriate time.

 

Later, as the student gains speed and proficiency, he can take notes without interrupting the lecture, then compare later to siblings'/classmates' notes, to the outline/transcript notes of the lecture, or can replay the lecture and compare notes to what was actually said. This will also help increase confidence in one's own note-taking abilities.

 

I just wish I had clean recordings of class lectures when I was in college. I wrote LOTS of notes, with side notes on questions asked and answered, questions of my own, stray remarks (from myself, the prof, or fellow students), references to look up later, etc. My hand would cramp quite badly at times, and I would miss getting some stuff written down and pester prof and fellow students later to review what I didn't get written. (For me actually writing the notes seems to most effectively cement it in my head.) I tried bringing a tape recorder to class (with prof permission), but the surrounding sounds (coughs, paper rustling, pencils dropping, people fidgeting, chalk on the board, fan on the overhead projector, over-aggressive a/c, etc.) would drown out what was being said most of the time. And I really appreciated the classes where the prof would hand out lecture outlines, copies of slides, or speaking notes at the start -- with a basis already provided I could concentrate on noting the meat instead of the structure of the lecture. I could then rewrite later while reviewing.

 

That's just me, but I think the ability to "stop" the lecture will help me teach my kids some of the note-taking strategies I had to work out for myself. Once I show them what I know (which I wish someone had done for me) then they are free to adopt, adapt, or abandon my strategies as they work out their own.

 

And side-note: all of these plans of mine will have to wait for the proper age and stage of development in my kids. I won't foist them upon grade-schoolers just yet (at least, not in full)....

 

Good discussion, everyone!

[shawthorne44]

In college, I was known to my classmates for my excellent notes. This was my method: I wrote everything done as fast as possible and let it be messy. I precisely copied any graphs. Then immediately after class I transcribed my notes. That was really the important part. Because I wrote everything down, and because I transcribed immediately after class, I was able to figure out everything I wrote down, and even add details that I still remembered but didn't get a chance to write down. Original notes were written in free flow, but transcribed notes were usually outlined. I never understood outlining while taking notes because you don't know the structure yet. But, after class you do. By repeating the information so soon, the information was usually stored in my head, and I only flipped through my notes before exams. I always used notebook paper and threw away the originals when they had been transcribed. It never took as long as a class period to transcribe. So, if I left one period between classes, I could go somewhere comfy on campus, transcribe, get a soda, use the bathroom and get to the next class.

[Ravin]

One thing no one has mentioned is taking notes on a laptop. I'm in a small atavistic minority in my law school classes in taking notes by hand. There are some very good software programs out there now for taking notes.

 

I "map" my notes--everything is bubbles, arrows pointing out to other bubbles and boxes, etc. It makes no sense to most people who look at it. I'm told some of the programs will let you take my sort of notes on the computer, along with lend themselves to pictoral and math notes, etc., but I haven't looked into it. If I was more of an outline/linear note taker I'd have switched to computer by now.

[Candid]

One thing no one has mentioned is taking notes on a laptop. I'm in a small atavistic minority in my law school classes in taking notes by hand. There are some very good software programs out there now for taking notes.

 

I "map" my notes--everything is bubbles, arrows pointing out to other bubbles and boxes, etc. It makes no sense to most people who look at it. I'm told some of the programs will let you take my sort of notes on the computer, along with lend themselves to pictoral and math notes, etc., but I haven't looked into it. If I was more of an outline/linear note taker I'd have switched to computer by now.

 

Many undergraduate professors still do not allow laptops in their classes.

 

There are also note taking devices with like the Livescribe pen: http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/ It may also be banned as some professor ban recording lectures AND a student should not plan to just record lectures and relisten to them the act of note taking is important and it is likely that relistening to lectures will not fit in time wise.