Notetaking

In this video Anne-marie describes 3 note taking techniques which support critical engagement with reading and listening.  The transcription of the video is below:

Hello, I'm Anne-marie Langford. I'm a Learning Development Tutor here at the University of Northampton. This video shows a short presentation which forms part of the "Introduction to Higher Education" Level Four, which is for pre-registration, nurses and nursing associates. This video has been created to support students who have difficulty accessing the group session. The group session is activity based and designed to give you the greatest benefit. This video has been created to support that learning and not as a replacement. This session is looking at note taking. And in my research, I've discovered that students that actively note take whilst listening actually have better retention of information than students that passively sit and listen. So you might want to consider that when you are listening to lectures or reading or watching videos or  listening to podcasts, whatever it is that you do everything you can to help you remember and assimilate the information that you are doing. One of the things that students say they struggle with is critical thinking and critical writing in their assignments. Now it's very difficult to write critically if you haven't done critical thinking because you haven't done critical reading or listening. So I'm going to give you some tools now that can help with that. It's also worth Remembering that there is a note taking section  on your NILE workbook, pre-registration for nurses. So, engage with that as well because that has been put there to help you. This will be an investment in your future learning. It might feel like it takes up some time now, but it will pay off for the future. So, you might take notes already if so what strategies do you currently use? Does it work for you completely or are there some drawbacks? Do you find that taking notes helps you or do you find it gets in the way? Whatever is true for you, is true for you. But it is worth mentioning that the research strongly suggests that students that take notes whilst listening and reading have better retention and understanding of the information than students who do not. So, we're going to look at some tools now that can help with that. And you're invited to use a tool to make notes on the Learning Outcomes for this module. So, this method is called Cornell Notes. And what you do is you divide the page into three areas at the top, you have two columns, the left-hand column is narrower, and the right-hand column is wider. So, the left-hand column contains cues you'd write these shortly after your class. So, let's go to the right-hand column, which is bigger. In the right-hand column, you make notes of the date, the time, the topic and the class and then you make your main notes. So, these might be bullet points or main notes. It might include diagrams and charts. You might use abbreviations and paraphrases and outlines and try and leave spaces between topics to help you stay organized.  After you've done the session, you might spend some time writing cues. These could include any anticipated assignment, questions or exam questions. You might summarize main ideas or thinkers in the area. You might list some important vocabulary words. You might also include some questions there that you might want to explore or  use to interrogate the information you've been given. Now, there's a section right at the bottom and this is for you to summarize very briefly the main points of learning for your assignment. Now, this can be really beneficial in helping you find information. So, if you file the notes after the class, you might find a few weeks later, you're trying to remember what was covered. So rather than having to read the whole notes page, you might look at your summary instead to help you figure out if that information is relevant. This will also help with assimilating the knowledge. So, this method is useful for helping to retain information. There's another method which is called sketch-noting, and this is beneficial for students who might not think in a linear way or might have a more visual and spatial memory. You don't have to be good at drawing for this. Remember, it's only you that looks at these pages. So, you don't have to be a beautiful drawer to make this work for you. So, it works something similar to a mind map more about that later, but it's not as structured. So, your main idea goes in the centre and then you draw pictures or diagrams, and you use a few words to encapsulate some of the ideas. Now, this is good for people who might have a tendency to transcribe what is being said in a lecture. So if you are one of these people who tries to hurry and write word for word, what is written, what is written down in a book or stated in the lecture, you might find it easier actually, just to let your mind wander and doodle or sketch note the ideas, then you could come back to them later and write them out in your own words. And this could help you with paraphrasing. It also helps as well if you're someone who's not a big words, person and you more think in pictures. So that's another tool that can be used for note taking. Then finally, we have mind mapping and mind mapping is where you visually organize different bits of information. So, the main topic goes in the centre and then you have ideas which branch off that and then further information that branches off that and mind mapping enables you to connect those ideas. So, this is really helpful when you're looking to make connections between information. OK. So, I'd like to invite you now to make an action plan based on the information that has been presented here. So, which tool would you use to help you in planning and writing your assignment or even when you're listening to a lecture or reading, try to be specific. So instead of saying I'll try out noting techniques, you might say I'll try sketch, noting my next lecture. That way it will be measurable because you will know when you've done it, it's achievable because you're doing it as part of what you would already be doing anyway. You can make it relevant to your learning and your learning outcomes and try and give yourself a time to do it and even better if you can fit it in with things that you're already doing. Any questions? Remember if you have any questions, you can find learning development through the student hub and the skills hub. There's also a link on the academic Skills for nurses’ web page where you can book a tutorial.