School life changes as someone advances. When in high school, the note-writing trend was a bit easy as compared to when in college. In high school, courses were a bit manageable, and note-taking was quite easy. However, in college, there have to be some techniques required to achieve great note-taking experience. Let us highlight some of the tips on note taking below.
Techniques On Taking Great Notes
• Adjust Your Mind
Before heading over to class, adjust, and train your mind to be ready for the class environment. You can adjust your mind to be prepared for the class environment by reading ahead. Go through the topic or notes you are about to learn in class and have a bigger idea of what is ahead of you. This idea will stimulate and improve the concentration of the brain while taking notes. If you don’t know what you are about to discuss, you will keep on thinking of other things while in class, thus, poor note-taking.
• Carry The Necessary Materials
When heading over to class, you will need some materials to help you out. You will need a laptop, a notebook, several pencils, textbooks, sticky notes, pens, and highlighters. Arrange all these materials before you enter the class since they are essential requirements for taking notes.
Another essential thing to have is water. Avoid caffeine or coffee when going to class as they affect your concentration. As much as the coffee enables you to stay up, it doesn’t dehydrate you. On the other hand, caffeine affects your sleep pattern, which later on affects your mental health, leading to poor concentration.
• Take A Light Snack Before Going To Class
Before stepping in class, avoid food rich in sugar and salt and consider a snack rich in carbs, protein, and fat. Among the best options are power bars, peanut butter, cheese, or crackers. The meal helps you to fill full for some time so that you can concentrate on taking notes without feeling hungry.
• Maintain A Positive Attitude
Train your brain to always have a positive attitude and mindset on every subject matter. If you train your brain to hate some subjects, there is no single day you will ever concentrate and take the right notes on the subject. Even if you perform poorly at one time, stay positive, and tell your mind next time you will do better. This way, you will gain morale even to study the subject and put in more effort and concentration to win next time.
• Try Different Methods
Different people learn in different ways. Try out the following techniques and find the best for yourself.
The common and simple one is the outline method. Here, you arrange the notes according to the lectures highlighting the strong points first.
Another one is the Cornell method, whereby you divide the paper into three sections, including notes, cues, and summary for easy reading.
Flow notes is another method for students who need to embrace active learning. This method involves the use of graphs, diagrams, arrows, .etc. to drive the point home.
Conclusion
Taking good notes is an art; you need the right concentration and better memory management. To achieve good note-taking experience, follow the above techniques, and you will experience a smooth operation when taking your notes.
