Note Taking and Note Making Contents Difference between

Note Taking and Note Making

Contents • Difference between taking notes and making notes(slide 4 -5) • Benefits of Note Making (slide 6 -8) • Essential elements of Note Making (slide 9 - 12) • Styles of Note making (slide 13) • Linear notes (slide 14 – 15) • Mind Maps (slide 16 - 20) • Additional information / links (slide 21)

Why you need to review this presentation…. • When you are studying you will be presented with a lot of information, in a lot of different formats. To ensure that you can use this information effectively, it is helpful to take and make your own notes. • This presentation is designed to highlight the different approaches you can use when taking and making notes. By personalising the information that you receive you are much more likely to be able to use it!

To take notes or to make notes • Note making requires involvement from the individual which can enhance the learning experience. Making a note requires you to think about the information that has been presented to you and make sense of it. Only when this thinking process is complete will you be able to make a note of the information that is personal to you. This process will be used as you study and revise a subject.

To take notes or to make notes! • Note taking, although active, does not require intellectual involvement. Taking a note usually involves you simply repeating the information which has been presented in a written format. This process will be used when taking notes in classes, for example.

Why Bother Making Notes? • Review – notes can be used to review the content of your course and enhance your learning. The more often you review your notes, the more likely it is that you will understand be able to use the content of those notes. You can enhance your notes as you review them, the enhanced content coming from your additional understanding of the topic as you progress in the course. • Recall – the more often that you use your notes, the easier it will be for you to recall the content of the notes. If you can recall the content of your notes easily, then you can use this in class or in study and assessment tasks.

Why Bother Making Notes? • Active Participation – the process of making notes requires you to be actively involved and engaged in the process of learning. Engagement in the learning process has been shown to produce more effective learning than passive observation. By making notes you can become more actively involved in the process of reading and when you are in lectures. The note making process will therefore give you added value from these activities.

Active Participation 8

4 Keys to Note Making • Organise • Personalise • Illustrate • Revise

4 Essential Elements of Note Making • Organise – when you are listening to information or reading information, make sure that you ‘chunk’ the information. Making notes will be much easier if you can identify the main features or sections of the information being presented to you. Look out for signposts, these could be things like subheadings in written material or a verbal cue such as ‘the next topic is’ or ‘now, moving on…’ when you are listing to someone. By being clear about the content and organising the material, your notes will be more useful. Another aspect of organising yourself for note making is to ensure that you have all of the equipment that you will need, pen / pencil, paper, electronic notebook or tablet computer.

4 Essential Elements of Note Making • Personalise – making notes means that you are making the notes your own, they will be personal to you. If you are making notes from a chapter in a textbook they will not be the same as a fellow student’s notes from exactly the same chapter. By thinking about what the information is telling you, in light of your current knowledge and understanding of the topic, you will be engaging with the material, making it personal and therefore more effective. • Illustrate - Don’t be afraid to add drawings, tables or charts to your notes. Remember the old saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’!

4 Essential Elements of Note Making • Revise – once you have made your notes, that is not the end of the process. You can use the notes to revise / to study the information at a later date but you can also make amendments or revisions to the notes when you review them. By revising or amending the notes you are engaging in an active process. This allows you to build a record of your knowledge of the subject, as your knowledge grows. By adding new thoughts, ideas or insights to your notes you will have a much more interesting and productive learning experience.

Styles of Note Making • Linear Note Making (or the standard approach) • Mind Mapping (or an alternative approach)

Linear Notes (standard approach) • 95 % of people use linear notes when making notes from books / journals / lectures / presentations • This form of note making is familiar but it can have a negative impact on the process of learning

Disadvantages of Linear Notes • Key words can not be easily identified • The notes are difficult to remember as they ‘turn off’ the brain due to their monotonous nature • They waste time as more notes are made than are required • They do not stimulate brain creativity - do not spark intellectual involvement • They don’t emphasise connections between topics

Mind Map (an Alternative Approach) • Mind Mapping is a note making process which aims to remove the disadvantages of linear note making. • The process uses non-linear approaches including pictures and colour to crystallise the subject under investigation

• Key features of mind maps include: • main subject is crystallised in a central image • main themes radiate from this central point • branches show important and less important issues • ordering of ideas will be shown by branches • importance of issue will be determined by size / colour / emphasis

Mind Map for different foods Source: englishvillage. files. wordpress. com/2012/09/food-mind-map. jpg. Accessed 29/10/12

Mind Map for health

Mind Maps • Using a mind map will allow you to present a lot of interlinking ideas in a way that stimulates your brain. • Key information and the main ideas are really easy to see. • You avoid the trap of simply taking notes, as a mind map does not allow you to simply repeat the words of others. • You are free to make connections and show the importance of different elements, in your own way.

Additional information / links • Examples of mind maps can be found at: • http: //learningfundamentals. com. au/resources • A short video on mind maps and how to develop and use them can be found at: • http: //www. youtube. com/watch? v=Mlabr. Wv 2 5 q. Q • Tools to support you in developing mind maps: • http: //simplemapper. org • http: //prezi. com

Additional information / links • General guidance on making and taking notes can be found at: • http: //www. palgrave. com/skills 4 study/studyskills/reading/notes. asp • http: //www. wiltshire. ac. uk/learning/study_skills/making_notes_9. asp