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I love transcripts because I basically can’t both take notes and actively pay attention (this was a huge problem with my trig and calc teacher in high school wh

I love transcripts because I basically can’t both take notes and actively pay attention (this was a huge problem with my trig and calc teacher in high school who insisted everyone take notes the entire class period and would get mad at you if she saw you not taking notes—I’d end the class with a bunch of pages of writing and no clue WTF any of it was about)

tomjakubowski 3y ago
Yeah, it's like having a medical scribe around. Taking notes requires a different kind of attention than engaging in conversation, and the switching can be really difficult. Anyway, even with a software scribe, meetings should probably end with attendees reviewing and agreeing on some kind of written document which will be the meeting's artifact. You know, so people can refer to it later. Of course this never happens, because in meetings people get bored and tired and it's easier to just give everyone the Zoom wave and crawl to the sofa.
magicalhippo 3y ago
> this was a huge problem with my trig and calc teacher in high school who insisted everyone take notes I found at uni that well-prepared blackboard/overhead lectures were excellent for taking notes. I caught many small typos and misunderstandings as I would actively work through each step of the theorem/proof/problem as I wrote. In hindsight I realized they must have spent a great deal of effort in preparing the lectures precisely such that they were easy to write down. In contrast, the PowerPoint lectures we had was exactly like you describe. Either I could focus on writing stuff down, but then I couldn't really follow what they were saying, or I could focus on what they were saying but not write anything down. Either way I felt I was missing out, as writing stuff down made stuff stick magnitudes better. I attributed this to the fact that PowerPoint doesn't lend itself to be easily transferred to notes, so it requires a transcription step that detracts from the lessons.
- fakedang 3y ago
  One professor of mine solved the PowerPoint issue by sharing his slides as well as the slide notes that he took time to prepare. He really didn't expect us to take notes, even though we did.
vidarh 3y ago
It's funny how people have to a large extent "forgotten" the deep organisational knowledge around meetings which used to - and still does in more formal context - ensure there's someone present whose role it is to take notes, and often to start meetings by reviewing notes and actions from the previous meeting. I guess it's in large part due to a reduction in the number of secretaries and assistant roles in most companies, but while many part of those roles became redundant with word processing etc., producing good quality notes did not, exactly because meeting participants that need to focus on the meeting make really lousy note-takers. Heck, I've been in meetings more than once where we referred back to the notes in the same meeting, and having good notes is amazing in those situations.

tomjakubowski 3y ago

Yeah, it's like having a medical scribe around. Taking notes requires a different kind of attention than engaging in conversation, and the switching can be really difficult. Anyway, even with a software scribe, meetings should probably end with attendees reviewing and agreeing on some kind of written document which will be the meeting's artifact. You know, so people can refer to it later. Of course this never happens, because in meetings people get bored and tired and it's easier to just give everyone the Zoom wave and crawl to the sofa.

magicalhippo 3y ago

> this was a huge problem with my trig and calc teacher in high school who insisted everyone take notes I found at uni that well-prepared blackboard/overhead lectures were excellent for taking notes. I caught many small typos and misunderstandings as I would actively work through each step of the theorem/proof/problem as I wrote. In hindsight I realized they must have spent a great deal of effort in preparing the lectures precisely such that they were easy to write down. In contrast, the PowerPoint lectures we had was exactly like you describe. Either I could focus on writing stuff down, but then I couldn't really follow what they were saying, or I could focus on what they were saying but not write anything down. Either way I felt I was missing out, as writing stuff down made stuff stick magnitudes better. I attributed this to the fact that PowerPoint doesn't lend itself to be easily transferred to notes, so it requires a transcription step that detracts from the lessons.

fakedang 3y ago
One professor of mine solved the PowerPoint issue by sharing his slides as well as the slide notes that he took time to prepare. He really didn't expect us to take notes, even though we did.

vidarh 3y ago

It's funny how people have to a large extent "forgotten" the deep organisational knowledge around meetings which used to - and still does in more formal context - ensure there's someone present whose role it is to take notes, and often to start meetings by reviewing notes and actions from the previous meeting. I guess it's in large part due to a reduction in the number of secretaries and assistant roles in most companies, but while many part of those roles became redundant with word processing etc., producing good quality notes did not, exactly because meeting participants that need to focus on the meeting make really lousy note-takers. Heck, I've been in meetings more than once where we referred back to the notes in the same meeting, and having good notes is amazing in those situations.