By Rafael Robledo
The concept of writing notes can be seen as something tedious and time consuming but they are important since they help us understand the material that we are learning. Last semester I wrote a blog on some of the different types of methods that might help you out, for this week though, I will go over a set of notes that have helped me out and some of the methods that I use to further understand a topic as someone who is a visual and kinesthetic learner.
The set of notes that I have started to implement in some of my classes consist of parts taken from outline style and Cornell notes with some diagrams. During lecture though, I don’t do these notes, I just write down what I can and it’s usually messy. For that reason, I like using these set of notes for my lecture and reading notes so that I can organize them and it makes it easy for me to understand the material.
The structure of these notes consist of the same layout as the outline notes and the way that I like to stay organized is through using different colored pens and highlighters. I use different colored pens and highlighters for headings, subheadings, notes and important information.
What I include from the Cornell notes are the summary at the end and I also write down questions that might come up. After finishing up my notes, I try my best to summarize the topic discussed, what I learned from the lecture and rewriting the notes. This helps me reflect on what I learned. On a sticky note, I like to write questions about the material that have come up or on some things that I still have a difficult time to understand. I later go to a TA or my professor during their office hours and ask them the questions that I have or I explain what I tried to do on a certain problem and what I didn’t understand from that problem etc…. This helps me alot since it helps me grasp the material better and I can also see what I need to work on so that I can understand the material more.
Hopefully this strategy of taking notes also helps you out as it has for me. For this week’s playlist, It is Focus and I have included some classical music to help you focus when studying and maybe even when you are taking notes. Since we are now amidst “midterm season” as I like to call it, I wish you luck on your midterms and I hope you destroy them.
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