Jump to content

Menu

how to teach/learn how to take notes


Recommended Posts

My high schooler is struggling to take notes, primarily when assigned to take notes from reading in textbooks. Are there any courses or books that teach this skill? She's a good student and motivated, just needs some guidelines.

 

Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I taught dd to take notes using an online science course (PLATO) so we could stop the lecture as needed at first. First she watched me take notes while we talked about what was important and I taught her how to outline. After a few lectures that way, I had her tell me what to write and I helped her decide what was important if she missed anything too glaring. After a couple months she was taking her own notes, slowly at first, stopping the lecture when she needed to catch up. She gets quicker and more efficient with practice and she now takes notes on Great Courses videos, online courses, and anything she reads for school.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I never found taking notes from a textbook to be all that useful, to be honest.  So it could be that your student is having trouble because she doesn't see what good it will do.

 

I'd work more towards seeing what strategies work for learning the material that needs to be learned.  If taking notes from a textbook gets the material into her head, then she should learn that skill.  But if it doesn't, or if there are other methods that work even better, then I wouldn't obsess too much about note taking.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's for an outside class, and the teacher requires note taking from textbook. Otherwise, I wouldn't bother. But, I have 2 in college, and I know the usefulness of it down the road. So we keep on. Thanks for helps.

 

That is unfortunate. I am very visual and do MUCH better studying from a textbook reading a section, then immediately going back through and highlighting / underlining only the key words and phrases. Then to study for a test, the night before the test I would refresh my memory by reading through just the highlighting / underlining. Writing down notes from the textbook would have far less effective for me, as it would have by-passed my strength (and need) of visualizing where on the page the information was, and what charts/graphs or other information was nearby -- I tend to close my eyes and "see" the page to help remember both the points I highlighted and what is nearby...

 

JMO, but the most useful study skills are finding those that click the best for the individual student...

 

Since you are forced by an outside class to do note taking from textbooks as an assignment, then here are some tips and methods:

 

- brief Wiki article: "How to take notes from a textbook"

- Cornell Note Taking Method (from textbooks)

- 3SQR Reading Method (includes note taking from textbooks)

- Mind Mapping a Textbook

 

Also, what about note taking software, that will allow print-out or upload as a document to the teacher of this class? Or what about a voice recognition software like Dragon, so your student can just read aloud key points from the text, record them, and then voice-to-text them into a document for print-out or upload? Just thinking outside the box here, in case your DD studies better with visual or auditory study methods. :)

 

BEST of luck! Warmly, Lori D.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...