Ooooooh I have a burning hate for this system (the dislike is rational, the burning part is not entirely rational but justified). Way back in high school my AP history teacher not only taught us this (cool, that's part of his job) and checked that we were able to do it (reasonable), he required us to submit notes in this exact format, for every reading, all year, which he graded. After I determined that my comprehension and retention rate went <i>down</i> as a result of having to constantly interrupt my reading to follow the format, I stopped doing them and he got big mad that I was still doing great on all his tests using my own strategies. With a >90% test average he still gave me a C– in the class and tried to pressure me to cancel my AP exam and take a partial refund for it. I got a 4. (For the non-US folks: that's a 4 on a 5-point scale and generally means it will count for university credit, as indeed it did for me.)<p>When I visited on a schoolday the next year, he saw me in the hallway and had the tremendous arrogance to ask me to pop into his class <i>and tell them how much the notes helped</i>. I was too unconfident at that point to do more than politely decline to do so, but modern me probably would have accepted the offer and then told the class exactly what I thought of them....<p>If they work for you, great! But no system is perfect for everyone. Assess what works for you, jettison the stuff that's wasting your time.<p>ETA: This episode did teach me something very important, which was that as a teacher, when I'm teaching <i>techniques</i> if I think it's important enough I can require students to learn the technique and assess whether they are able to do it, but then I let <i>them</i> decide whether to use it in general or find something better.
This, like any system, works better for some individuals than others, depending on their learning style. I liked the presentation here, basically “try this, you may find it valuable”. I'm sure that some people found it useless, others very useful. When I was teaching, students would sometimes ask me for permission to record the lectures. I always said yes, because I know that some students learn best aurally, and find note-taking interferes with their learning style.<p>Teachers (or school systems) that mandate this system, and, even worse, GRADE NOTEBOOKS completely misunderstand the point of it. In K-12, one of the goals is to help students become effective learners, which involves students identifying the tools that help them learn best.<p>I really like the SUMMARY section, asking the student to synthesize some kind of big picture. I always said that in a 50-minute university class, you can thoroughly explain one sentence and its ramifications. The space given for SUMMARY really asks the student to identify that sentence. And it also gives room for a really good question from a student: “Hey, teach, I can't figure out the summary for that class on recursion, can you help me?”, though, to be fair, no student ever called me “teach”.
I wish this had been taught week 1 of college when I went in the mid 90s. All college's should have a mandatory module on note taking, learning techniques and general planning and productivity.
The main thing I learned watching these videos is that Cornell students—or Americans more generally, perhaps—hold pens in a way that seems unusual to me. For example, with the thumb wrapped round the pen or with it gripped by the tips of all five fingers.<p>Is that normal in the US? In the UK, I was taught to grip the pen with my thumb and forefinger tips and rest it on my middle finger. Most people I see writing hold the pen that way too.
I believe note systems are great! The only problem, and I see people talking too little about it, is that you need to create your own, for it to be effective.<p>It's like trying to use spaced repetition with cards made by someone else, you loose 80% of the benefit.<p>Creating, perfecting (and using) your own note system is what makes you a learning machine, as it let's you understand how your mind process and learn information. Your system is a reflex of your own mind, and exposes (reasonably) to you how the inner words.<p>Very hard, thought, as you need a very high level of meta thought. Hence a lot of people see someone's else system and try to use it, benefit poorly from it.<p>You can and should learn from other's systems, but to perfect what you made yourself.
Goodness gracious.<p>There is an entire generation of school children (at the very least in my locality) who were forced to use an incredibly poor implementation of this method by teachers who barely understood the intent themselves.<p>On which we were punished for not doing correctly.<p>The biggest gripe I had about this method was that the lessons in middle school and high school never had enough information density to make this meaningful in any way.<p>Anyways, I can’t take notes like this anymore. Being punished an entire letter grade for not having enough questions on my notes when I was aceing every single test made me never want to take notes like this ever again.<p>Edit: I’m sure this system works for some people but it definitely did not click with the way my brain retains information but being forced to try to learn in a manner that my brain did not want to learn has left me with a burning desire to never do it again.
On a personal note, I found any form of notetaking is distraction for me to grasping information... I really don't understand how someone could take good note while also listen... I found this only when I starting my PhD. I hope I know this sooner.<p>Also, notetaking in any designed system is worse than a blank piece of paper for me. Not sure if any one would agree.
The rash of "no way" responses makes me wonder: what note taking system(s) have you encountered that actually work for you? (And why, if known.)<p>From someone who episodically takes notes in haphazard fashion and very rarely looks at them again, and thinks he's probably woefully working harder than he should as a result.
They forced us to use this in middle and a little bit in high school, never really liked it. The usable space on the page to write details was so low compared to a blank piece of paper, and the summarizing I didn’t think really helped (especially if you needed all the details from the notes like in a history class).<p>Other people like it though, maybe I was just doing it wrong.
I attended undergrad there 25 years ago. didn't know this system existed!<p>I thought this thread was going to be about lecture notes that you used to be able to buy in case your own notes suck or you missed a bunch of lectures. Not sure if they still sell them though. (there was a specific name... if anyone here still remembers)
Imo taking notes just takes your attention away from the lecturer and it's best to only write down major details, if anything is written down at all<p>Also since most lectures have some kind of recorded equivalent now, there is no scarcity with respect to the info the lecturer is communicating. So you can always go back and rewatch. Taking notes just gives you an excuse to not remember what you're hearing
Sounds like flashcards without the spaced repetition. Hardly revolutionary, and I'd bet SR would work better due to the preferential focus on cue-note combos with less retention.
You know there's this going where people are starting to realize that extensive/fancy note taking is a gigantic waste of time. The only thing it needs to do is to offload cognitive thinking onto something external while you're learning so you can hold ideas. Most learning comes from recalling, not having beautiful notes.