4 ms·

I disagree almost completely with the article. From my experience, it is almost always an over complication of learning to study a lot at home and to take notes

by jaddood 10y ago

I disagree almost completely with the article. From my experience, it is almost always an over complication of learning to study a lot at home and to take notes in a special way or whatever. What you should do, in my opinion, is to focus almost exclusively on the ideas explained and try in any way to oppose them, when you find something you feel shouldn't be how it is, ask. The mere exploration of the concepts gives deep understanding of them and will require you almost no extra work at home. Often it will literally need no extra work at all. Also, when the teacher answers your question, you will get even deeper insight and so will the teacher (especially when it comes to higher levels of teaching) and most other students who care to learn. Jotting down notes is a nice way to force yourself to formulate the ideas yourself, if you don't already do so, but most often, these notes needn't and shouldn't be read. They should just be written down.

pthreads 10y ago
>...focus almost exclusively on the ideas explained and try in any way to oppose them, when you find something you feel shouldn't be how it is, ask... Not picking on your comment, just wanted to share a little anecdote. We had this one retired guy in grad school who already had 2 Ph.D.s in other disciplines and this was probably his third. OMG he would incessantly ask questions in class. They were not even helpful questions -- very basic and mundane. In an algorithms class he asked the prof. how he came up with those numbers in an example even though he had already said that they were random. At which point the prof. rolled his eyes and said "magic!" His actions were very annoying and slowed down the class significantly by breaking the flow. When asked privately why he would do that his answer was he was helping out others who may be too afraid to ask basic questions. I felt like banging my head on a wall.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  That was always a tension for me at university. Do I ask a question, because I'm stumped, this may be confusing others, and most people are too scared to do it? Or am I just holding up the class? No idea what people thought, or if I crossed the line. If they're too shy to ask questions they're probably too shy to reprimand me for it.
  - uiri 10y ago
    If you have a genuine question, I feel like it is fine. If you're holding up the class because they're all smarter than you, well, they can take up their issues with the admissions department. But if you're asking basic questions even though you understand but you think the explanation might be confusing for others, you're probably just holding up the class.
    - lacampbell 10y ago
      No I never presumed that everyone was dumber than me and I had to fire questions off to prompt the lecturer to educate the plebs in the class. It was always genuine.
    - ruleabidinguser 10y ago
      THats a selfish attitude.
Clownshoesms 10y ago
I agree, this bit struck me: "The key idea of taking good notes in class is to write down as much as possible." I guess the post does mention to adapt strategies based on the teacher's style, but I found (some/most) lecturers I had were just speed-writing on the blackboards as fast as possible (95 perhaps?), in barely legible writing, while also explaining the concepts. My calc & linear lecturers were like a weird, comical race where the lecturers were master speed-writers with a side of obfuscation, so not only couldn't I keep up sometimes with the notes, the actual verbal explanation/concepts were falling by the wayside. As an aside I had this lady's father for calc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Crown_Princess_of_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Crown_Princess_of_Denmar...
- throwaway729 10y ago
  This off-hand comment sent me on a hilarious wiki tangent. At some point you'll be able to say your Calculus lecturer was the Queen's father. Just think how different his life would've been if his daughter didn't meet the Prince at the Slip Inn bar (you can't make this stuff up). As an aside, he put an \inf on his coat of arms.
- foobarian 10y ago
  Not that I'm condoning the speed-teaching, but I find that writing down stuff helps me learn it in a qualitatively better way than just listening to it. It could be a left-brain kind of thing but it definitely trips some alternate pathways. I don't need a lecturer to do this necessarily but it's an effective if expensive forcing function.
  - Noseshine 10y ago
    I can very well imagine note-taking helps with memorization, but I can't imagine that it helps with concepts, with connection the dots. Your mind has to be able to wander freely for that, when you are busy writing you have to concentrate on that particular task, which is the opposite of a freely roaming mind ready to explore ideas and connections. Just my theory, and I'm certainly biased, since I'm someone who very rarely wrote anything down at university At school we had to, and looking back the results I got from that education support my theory. I never had any trouble at school, but getting good grades and actually caring about the knowledge and connecting it all in my head didn't happen - only now, decades later, when I discovered online learning and took over 70 courses by now am I able to connect it all in a meaningful way. No, I certainly don't have a good opinion about note-taking as a basis for gaining knowledge. The results are too narrow, I think. What I found that helps - which unfortunately doesn't scale very well given how much students have to learn in a given time - is to teach others. Become a TA. Answer other people's questions, explain stuff. It may be an individual thing, I always work better that way in all parts of life - doing things other people need, I don't have a lot of questions myself and I do much better under this system.
sevensor 10y ago
This worked very well for me in grad school. Come to class with the mindset that the professor is to be presumed wrong and that the lecture has to defend an idea. Ask leading questions and see if the professor takes the bait. The intent is not to play gotcha, but to see if you can get the professor to clearly articulate a point you think is incorrect. (This is in engineering, mind you. From what I've heard about grad school in the humanities, I don't think you'd get very far with even an implicit challenge to the professor's authority.) In the end, you may still disagree with the professor's point, but at least you understand it. With regard to notes, I found the same thing. Take thorough notes in a blank notebook. Disregard printed-out slides or other materials until after the lecture. Rarely return to your notes -- the value is in having written them down in the first place. (Who on earth has the time to rewrite notes?) Note-taking in the real world is quite different. Keeping detailed meeting notes is my preferred strategy for staying awake. In one job, where we had a lot of meetings about the same subject, I did retype my notes, and then I took more notes on the printouts. Then I typed them up again and repeated ad nauseam. By the time I left that job, I had accumulated a 100 page book with minute details and history of our process.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]

by jaddood 10y ago

pthreads 10y ago

>...focus almost exclusively on the ideas explained and try in any way to oppose them, when you find something you feel shouldn't be how it is, ask... Not picking on your comment, just wanted to share a little anecdote. We had this one retired guy in grad school who already had 2 Ph.D.s in other disciplines and this was probably his third. OMG he would incessantly ask questions in class. They were not even helpful questions -- very basic and mundane. In an algorithms class he asked the prof. how he came up with those numbers in an example even though he had already said that they were random. At which point the prof. rolled his eyes and said "magic!" His actions were very annoying and slowed down the class significantly by breaking the flow. When asked privately why he would do that his answer was he was helping out others who may be too afraid to ask basic questions. I felt like banging my head on a wall.

lacampbell 10y ago
That was always a tension for me at university. Do I ask a question, because I'm stumped, this may be confusing others, and most people are too scared to do it? Or am I just holding up the class? No idea what people thought, or if I crossed the line. If they're too shy to ask questions they're probably too shy to reprimand me for it.
- uiri 10y ago
  If you have a genuine question, I feel like it is fine. If you're holding up the class because they're all smarter than you, well, they can take up their issues with the admissions department. But if you're asking basic questions even though you understand but you think the explanation might be confusing for others, you're probably just holding up the class.
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    No I never presumed that everyone was dumber than me and I had to fire questions off to prompt the lecturer to educate the plebs in the class. It was always genuine.
  - ruleabidinguser 10y ago
    THats a selfish attitude.

Clownshoesms 10y ago

I agree, this bit struck me: "The key idea of taking good notes in class is to write down as much as possible." I guess the post does mention to adapt strategies based on the teacher's style, but I found (some/most) lecturers I had were just speed-writing on the blackboards as fast as possible (95 perhaps?), in barely legible writing, while also explaining the concepts. My calc & linear lecturers were like a weird, comical race where the lecturers were master speed-writers with a side of obfuscation, so not only couldn't I keep up sometimes with the notes, the actual verbal explanation/concepts were falling by the wayside. As an aside I had this lady's father for calc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Crown_Princess_of_Denmark https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary,_Crown_Princess_of_Denmar...

throwaway729 10y ago
This off-hand comment sent me on a hilarious wiki tangent. At some point you'll be able to say your Calculus lecturer was the Queen's father. Just think how different his life would've been if his daughter didn't meet the Prince at the Slip Inn bar (you can't make this stuff up). As an aside, he put an \inf on his coat of arms.
foobarian 10y ago
Not that I'm condoning the speed-teaching, but I find that writing down stuff helps me learn it in a qualitatively better way than just listening to it. It could be a left-brain kind of thing but it definitely trips some alternate pathways. I don't need a lecturer to do this necessarily but it's an effective if expensive forcing function.
- Noseshine 10y ago
  I can very well imagine note-taking helps with memorization, but I can't imagine that it helps with concepts, with connection the dots. Your mind has to be able to wander freely for that, when you are busy writing you have to concentrate on that particular task, which is the opposite of a freely roaming mind ready to explore ideas and connections. Just my theory, and I'm certainly biased, since I'm someone who very rarely wrote anything down at university At school we had to, and looking back the results I got from that education support my theory. I never had any trouble at school, but getting good grades and actually caring about the knowledge and connecting it all in my head didn't happen - only now, decades later, when I discovered online learning and took over 70 courses by now am I able to connect it all in a meaningful way. No, I certainly don't have a good opinion about note-taking as a basis for gaining knowledge. The results are too narrow, I think. What I found that helps - which unfortunately doesn't scale very well given how much students have to learn in a given time - is to teach others. Become a TA. Answer other people's questions, explain stuff. It may be an individual thing, I always work better that way in all parts of life - doing things other people need, I don't have a lot of questions myself and I do much better under this system.

sevensor 10y ago

This worked very well for me in grad school. Come to class with the mindset that the professor is to be presumed wrong and that the lecture has to defend an idea. Ask leading questions and see if the professor takes the bait. The intent is not to play gotcha, but to see if you can get the professor to clearly articulate a point you think is incorrect. (This is in engineering, mind you. From what I've heard about grad school in the humanities, I don't think you'd get very far with even an implicit challenge to the professor's authority.) In the end, you may still disagree with the professor's point, but at least you understand it. With regard to notes, I found the same thing. Take thorough notes in a blank notebook. Disregard printed-out slides or other materials until after the lecture. Rarely return to your notes -- the value is in having written them down in the first place. (Who on earth has the time to rewrite notes?) Note-taking in the real world is quite different. Keeping detailed meeting notes is my preferred strategy for staying awake. In one job, where we had a lot of meetings about the same subject, I did retype my notes, and then I took more notes on the printouts. Then I typed them up again and repeated ad nauseam. By the time I left that job, I had accumulated a 100 page book with minute details and history of our process.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]