Note-taking

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Clarissa

April 7, 2016

Studies show that copying information from the blackboard by hand allows students to retain a lot more knowledge than typing this information.

Typing, however, is an outdated trend. Today, students don’t type. They photograph. Time and again, I see a student snooze through the class period only to take a photo of the blackboard at the end of class. This is, of course, a lot more useless than typing. If you haven’t heard the lecture and haven’t tried to make it meaningful to yourself through taking your own notes, the scribbles on the blackboard will have no meaning to you.

I don’t forbid photographing of the blackboard but I always wonder why such a silly method of note-taking even exists.

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7 responses to “Note-taking”

Shakti

April 7, 2016

Maybe they have a very visual memory? Or perhaps they take notes from the photograph for later? Sometimes I’ve envisioned the page or the blackboard when I search my memory. Writing notes is better than typing for me, but I didn’t grow up with laptops and cell phones. I know people that tape or record lectures because they have learning disabilities that make note taking difficult.

My written notes are half notes and half illustration which often has nothing to do with the actual notes.

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Pen

April 7, 2016

I don’t take pictures regularly. It’s more often that the professor is going through the notes too quickly for me to take everything down by hand. Then I’ll take a picture of the board so I can complete my notes later. I only resort to typing when I’m severely bored, since it gives me an extra visual stimulus to help keep me awake. I know of people who take minimal notes, record the lecture, and then go through the notes in more detail after the lecture, too.

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Taking notes – No Contest Communications

April 7, 2016

[…] that on some assignments my own on-the-whiteboard language was being parroted back to me. Here is my friend Clarissa‘s smart take on the […]

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David P. Bellamy

April 7, 2016

I encourage students to photograph the blackboard. They often return next class with questions and can show me what I wrote.

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DWeird

April 7, 2016

After a certain point in my studies, I stopped taking notes. I found that writing things down verbatim was simply impossible, and trying to jot down a shortened version lead my mind to a loop where I began considering the implications of what’s being said, or how to best compress what’s being presented, or yet something else distracting.

So now I do nothing but listen.

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Jones

April 7, 2016

I suppose there’s something in the university’s student contracts that disallows them from recording each class with the little cameras on the backs of their laptops?

[… and from now on, Clarissa’s going to be suuuuuper-paranoid …] 🙂

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1. Clarissa
  
  April 8, 2016
  
  I don’t mind in the least what they do or how they record. I’m just saying it’s a waste of because it’s truly idiotic to spend the class period that’s assigned for learning on browsing Instagram only to end up with a recording you will have to find time to watch.
  
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