6 ms·

Agree 100%. I went to college before tablets and affordable laptops became ubiquitous, but the same problem applied to handwritten notes. After a few tries to k

Agree 100%. I went to college before tablets and affordable laptops became ubiquitous, but the same problem applied to handwritten notes. After a few tries to keep notes and re-read them at my leisure I gave up, it was exhausting to take them and in the end I was missing too much. The best solution is audio/video recording. I think every lecturer can record their lectures and publish them online later in the college's database or wherever. Cheap, easy and you don't have to worry about taking notes and missing anything

afarrell 9y ago
> publish them online later Note that you also need to have someone add captions to them for accessibility.
- lvoudour 9y ago
  Most professors are experts at delegating the menial tasks to others :)
  - cjsuk 9y ago
    They are however terrible at remembering to delegate them from experience!
  - afarrell 9y ago
    Sure, but that requires a budget
cjsuk 9y ago
To clarify, I too was before the time of laptops and recording technology being available. MiniDiscs had just come on the scene then and the notes are worth nothing without what appears on the OHP and the contextual timing of them. Video recording was impossible. Really every lecture should be recorded and links handed out to students. A big killer is that the lecturer has been doing the same lecture for 20 odd years and is complacent or prefers to defer feedback to the end. Everyone is lost then. Same with meetings. Questions at the end? Context gone!
sotojuan 9y ago
Yeah I stopped taking notes after I realized I never looked at them. Even when studying for an exam, I'd always make new notes from scratch rather than rewrite or read old ones. It doesn't work for all classes, but I found that listening closely to the lecture and maybe writing down some main points and then reviewing or studying later worked for me.
- SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
  I find this especially true for my STEM classes, I can't for the life of me derive anything of value from lectures in math or anything math based unless we're talking about the broad overarching concept (like what an integral represents or what cache memory is for). If its the details of what some code does or how to do some operation on a matrix, forget it, I'm not going to glean anything more in that time listening than I would be able to figure out on my own with google in that same timespan. I find trying to follow examples to be simultaneously too slow to keep my attention and too fast when something was not apparently obvious to me leading to this effect where I'm either lost because I got what we were doing and my attention wandered so now I'm lost or my attention wanders trying to figure out the part that was not readily apparent.
  - amha 9y ago
    One of the corollaries to this, if you're teaching, is that your time should be spent NOT on the details––not, for example, on the step-by-step algebra to solve some complicated algebra to solve some integral––but rather on the bigger concepts (e.g., the general strategy of how to solve that sort of integral). Give students the rough path and let them fill in the details, rather than just giving the turn-by-turn directions.
    - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
      Right, its one of my biggest frustration with my university experience. Why am I paying you large sums of money for instruction that feels like it equates to a list of practice problems.
    - 9y ago
usrusr 9y ago
Also before tablets and ubiquitous laptops, but after PowerPoint hit: whenever I had the opportunity to have slide printouts ahead of time, they were a surprisingly nice scribble sink (many slides per page, not a big stack). Those short bursts of details, questions or clarifications both from the talk and from thinking while listening that would be useless riddles without the context provided by the rough timeline of the slide deck. These won't magically turn lectures into the hours that make you pass a test (where did people ever get that expectation?), but unlike many other forms note-taking they do increase the value of the "on topic entertainment" provided by a lecture.
- npsimons 9y ago
  I really, really wish more professors had provided slides up front; many don't change them year to year anyway, and it would have helped immensely to prepare for the lecture and be more actively engaged. Syllabi are helpful, but even these days I insist on having at least a purpose if not a full blown agenda for meetings, otherwise what's the point?
  - ghaff 9y ago
    As I wrote in another comment, a lot of my experience is with conferences. If I had presentations pre-loaded on my tablet, I absolutely think I'd get more out of many presentations by taking notes on PDFs rather than (usually) typing a bunch of notes and snapping pics of slides that I may or may not get access to at some point.
  - robotresearcher 9y ago
    It's very simple: students who get the notes up front are less likely to come to class. Before you tell me this is silly, it's a fact that some students need help to decide to come to class. Should we reduce the absolute goodness of the class to assist less-than-perfect students? We already do in so many ways. Sigh.
hollander 9y ago
I went to college before laptops as well. Taking notes has two purposes. First to remember what was said in class, extras that are not in the book, and it's a good indicator of the exam questions. Second is processing what is said. Research has shown that writing down what you hear makes you better understand and remember what is said, then when you type it on your laptop. Even if you don't use the notes afterward, they are still useful. Video is a very useful method, but then the video has to be edited, or do you get three simultaneous streams, one of the professor, the board and the powerpoint? Videos like on Udemy are made for the medium. Class is not made for video, and I wonder how productive those videos are. And when you go to class, do you really go home and see the whole class on video once again? That's way too time consuming. The notes are a good summary, much faster. Yes and it is taking effort, exactly what is needed. It puts your mind to work.
- bpyne 9y ago
  lvoudour didn't seem to be arguing against the research so much as agreeing with cjsuk that the lecture model of teaching is ineffective for some population regardless of note-taking medium. The research shows that, of people who learn effectively in the lecture-style learning model, more of them learn better from taking notes on paper. But, there is a significant - I would never claim majority - population that doesn't learn well in lecture-style learning. For that population, they could use electronic device, paper/pen, clay tablet, or direct imprints to the brain and it wouldn't matter: they don't learn well from being lectured to.
  - mtpn 9y ago
    I avoided taking notes for much of college, except of key things I wanted to come back to on my own. So many people try to capture the whole content of a lecture in notes, but to me that’s more like transcribing than processing. What I found was if I listen like it’s a conversation, I can enjoy the lecture but then also have time to make connections and think about things. My notes did not reflect the lecture content itself, but instead were my own associations, reactione, and things I found interesting. But we are indeed not all alike.
- aandrieiev 9y ago
ghaff 9y ago
One option available today is writing on tablets. There are apps available that let you record and sync any notes you take to the recording. This lets you highlight a key point and then go back to the right spot in the recording. There have been various attempts to do this with special pens and paper but the tablet approach works pretty well. It's not super-useful for me personally--I tend to default to a laptop for various reasons--but there have been times when I think note-taking like this would have been very useful.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago
There was a note taking service I used. They hired students to type up lecture notes. Available the next day. On red paper so it could not be photocopied. It was money well spent during my undergraduate tenure.
- gowld 9y ago
  > On red paper so it could not be photocopied. Rediculous. Luckily today we have computers that can scan and color-correct. And social media so students can organize and cut out the middle-men

afarrell 9y ago

> publish them online later Note that you also need to have someone add captions to them for accessibility.

lvoudour 9y ago
Most professors are experts at delegating the menial tasks to others :)
- cjsuk 9y ago
  They are however terrible at remembering to delegate them from experience!
- afarrell 9y ago
  Sure, but that requires a budget

cjsuk 9y ago

To clarify, I too was before the time of laptops and recording technology being available. MiniDiscs had just come on the scene then and the notes are worth nothing without what appears on the OHP and the contextual timing of them. Video recording was impossible. Really every lecture should be recorded and links handed out to students. A big killer is that the lecturer has been doing the same lecture for 20 odd years and is complacent or prefers to defer feedback to the end. Everyone is lost then. Same with meetings. Questions at the end? Context gone!

sotojuan 9y ago

Yeah I stopped taking notes after I realized I never looked at them. Even when studying for an exam, I'd always make new notes from scratch rather than rewrite or read old ones. It doesn't work for all classes, but I found that listening closely to the lecture and maybe writing down some main points and then reviewing or studying later worked for me.

SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
I find this especially true for my STEM classes, I can't for the life of me derive anything of value from lectures in math or anything math based unless we're talking about the broad overarching concept (like what an integral represents or what cache memory is for). If its the details of what some code does or how to do some operation on a matrix, forget it, I'm not going to glean anything more in that time listening than I would be able to figure out on my own with google in that same timespan. I find trying to follow examples to be simultaneously too slow to keep my attention and too fast when something was not apparently obvious to me leading to this effect where I'm either lost because I got what we were doing and my attention wandered so now I'm lost or my attention wanders trying to figure out the part that was not readily apparent.
- amha 9y ago
  One of the corollaries to this, if you're teaching, is that your time should be spent NOT on the details––not, for example, on the step-by-step algebra to solve some complicated algebra to solve some integral––but rather on the bigger concepts (e.g., the general strategy of how to solve that sort of integral). Give students the rough path and let them fill in the details, rather than just giving the turn-by-turn directions.
  - SimbaOnSteroids 9y ago
    Right, its one of my biggest frustration with my university experience. Why am I paying you large sums of money for instruction that feels like it equates to a list of practice problems.
  - 9y ago

usrusr 9y ago

Also before tablets and ubiquitous laptops, but after PowerPoint hit: whenever I had the opportunity to have slide printouts ahead of time, they were a surprisingly nice scribble sink (many slides per page, not a big stack). Those short bursts of details, questions or clarifications both from the talk and from thinking while listening that would be useless riddles without the context provided by the rough timeline of the slide deck. These won't magically turn lectures into the hours that make you pass a test (where did people ever get that expectation?), but unlike many other forms note-taking they do increase the value of the "on topic entertainment" provided by a lecture.

npsimons 9y ago
I really, really wish more professors had provided slides up front; many don't change them year to year anyway, and it would have helped immensely to prepare for the lecture and be more actively engaged. Syllabi are helpful, but even these days I insist on having at least a purpose if not a full blown agenda for meetings, otherwise what's the point?
- ghaff 9y ago
  As I wrote in another comment, a lot of my experience is with conferences. If I had presentations pre-loaded on my tablet, I absolutely think I'd get more out of many presentations by taking notes on PDFs rather than (usually) typing a bunch of notes and snapping pics of slides that I may or may not get access to at some point.
- robotresearcher 9y ago
  It's very simple: students who get the notes up front are less likely to come to class. Before you tell me this is silly, it's a fact that some students need help to decide to come to class. Should we reduce the absolute goodness of the class to assist less-than-perfect students? We already do in so many ways. Sigh.

hollander 9y ago

I went to college before laptops as well. Taking notes has two purposes. First to remember what was said in class, extras that are not in the book, and it's a good indicator of the exam questions. Second is processing what is said. Research has shown that writing down what you hear makes you better understand and remember what is said, then when you type it on your laptop. Even if you don't use the notes afterward, they are still useful. Video is a very useful method, but then the video has to be edited, or do you get three simultaneous streams, one of the professor, the board and the powerpoint? Videos like on Udemy are made for the medium. Class is not made for video, and I wonder how productive those videos are. And when you go to class, do you really go home and see the whole class on video once again? That's way too time consuming. The notes are a good summary, much faster. Yes and it is taking effort, exactly what is needed. It puts your mind to work.

bpyne 9y ago
lvoudour didn't seem to be arguing against the research so much as agreeing with cjsuk that the lecture model of teaching is ineffective for some population regardless of note-taking medium. The research shows that, of people who learn effectively in the lecture-style learning model, more of them learn better from taking notes on paper. But, there is a significant - I would never claim majority - population that doesn't learn well in lecture-style learning. For that population, they could use electronic device, paper/pen, clay tablet, or direct imprints to the brain and it wouldn't matter: they don't learn well from being lectured to.
- mtpn 9y ago
  I avoided taking notes for much of college, except of key things I wanted to come back to on my own. So many people try to capture the whole content of a lecture in notes, but to me that’s more like transcribing than processing. What I found was if I listen like it’s a conversation, I can enjoy the lecture but then also have time to make connections and think about things. My notes did not reflect the lecture content itself, but instead were my own associations, reactione, and things I found interesting. But we are indeed not all alike.
aandrieiev 9y ago

ghaff 9y ago

One option available today is writing on tablets. There are apps available that let you record and sync any notes you take to the recording. This lets you highlight a key point and then go back to the right spot in the recording. There have been various attempts to do this with special pens and paper but the tablet approach works pretty well. It's not super-useful for me personally--I tend to default to a laptop for various reasons--but there have been times when I think note-taking like this would have been very useful.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

qrbLPHiKpiux 9y ago

There was a note taking service I used. They hired students to type up lecture notes. Available the next day. On red paper so it could not be photocopied. It was money well spent during my undergraduate tenure.

gowld 9y ago
> On red paper so it could not be photocopied. Rediculous. Luckily today we have computers that can scan and color-correct. And social media so students can organize and cut out the middle-men