Have you ever played a video game? Going off to college is a similar kind of thing. In high school, you had only tests and courses to deal with. Now, if you are in college, you must level up your game with some high-level equipment. One such tool is your notes. Let us introduce techniques to get the most out of your notes after class.
- Preparing well before class- Before heading off to the class, ensure that you have gone through all previous lectures. Try to acquaint yourself with the topic before the class starts so that you can grasp concepts quickly. In addition, you must pack all the necessary items for learning effectively. The list includes multiple pencils or backup lead, pens, highlighters, a notebook, textbooks, and sticky notes. You must grab a snack before entering your classroom, so you do not get distracted due to hunger cravings in the middle of a professor’s lecture.
- Equip your brain- It is crucial that you come to class with a positive attitude and a good mood, that is, a note-taking mindset, so that you can learn more. If your professor mentions the same fact repeatedly, you must note it, circle it, and underline it. It will direct your brain to pay extra focus to that information. In other words, keeping an eye out for repetition is crucial.
Gone are the days of looking back at what you scribbled down in class and attempting to decipher useful stuff before a test. Even YouTubers are now providingplatforms to create and sell courses online to help you out.
Now, let us learn about the best systems for taking notes. While every individual has a distinct way of learning, you can even experiment with various techniques to choose the most suitable one.
- Outline- If you like to keep it simple, choose the structured method. It is a straightforward way to take notes; most people can do it naturally. While taking outline notes, start by choosing around five significant points of your lecture. Write some in-depth pointers about each topic when the professor covers them. Though it is a straightforward approach, it might become overwhelming to review these notes afterward. Utilizing the Cornell Method will help you get the most out of your review time. You must divide your sheet into three categories: notes, cues, and summary. You can keep the cue and summary sections extremely simple. However, you can fill the notes with diagrams, references, and other relevant information to represent the material taught in class.
- Detailed- The in-depth mind map is a wonderful way of taking notes for some subjects like history, philosophy, and chemistry with related topics or complicated ideas. Several educators are now using platforms to sell courses online. You can check them out for some ideas.
- Holistic- If you want maximum learning within the classroom and review things in a limited time, you should try taking flow notes. While jotting down topics, drawing arrows, and making graphs and diagrams, you are actively learning. Though you can utilize this method for learning at the moment, it can be difficult to skim through flow notes later. It might work for you if you are a visual and auditory learner and retain the maximum information from your lectures in your brain. However, in other cases, you can easily pair your notes with the Cornell Method for studying.
- Bullet Journaling- This method is undoubtedly the best option if you love aesthetics or doodling. It also works excellent with visual learners. When you are writing in your bullet journal, you can turn a blank sheet into a beautiful depiction of your thoughts. Combining varied note-taking styles, in this case, will also work wonders. One of the drawbacks of this method is that it is difficult to take running notes quickly. Also, it is hard to keep your journal attractive and organized while you are scribbling everything. You can take notes during class in some other method and then organize them later in your bullet journal while reviewing your notes.
Whether you are familiar with taking notes or have not yet learned to take notes properly, we have extensively covered how you can take excellent notes. Let us know which method you used.
