Explains the need to teach students different strategies for taking notes for research, especially at the exploration and collecting information stages, based on Carol Kuhlthau's research process. Discusses format changes; using index cards; notes for live presentations or media presentations versus notes for printed sources; and forming focus…

Describes the Guided Lecture Procedure (GLP), a procedure that requires students to suspend all notetaking and listen carefully during an approximately 20-minute lecture, followed by an active notetaking and small group interaction phase. Adds one extra requirement in the active notetaking phase: requiring each learner to write a question for the…

Explains concept mapping as a heuristic device that is helpful in visualizing the relationships between and among ideas. Highlights include how to begin a map; brainstorming; map applications, including document or information summaries and writing composition; and mind mapping to strengthen note-taking. (LRW)

Students with learning disabilities lack effective note-taking skills for a variety of reasons. Despite the important role that notes play in helping students to understand lecture content information and serving as documents for later review, many students with learning disabilities are simply not effective note-takers. Many of these students…

Twenty years of research shows that using interactive techniques more often can make a class more effective. For example, a study of six thousand physics students compared classes using passive lecture to classes using interactive techniques that allowed for discussion among students and between the professor and students. The study showed that…

The Information Group at Millipore has been successfully using a digital rights management tool to secure the email distribution of archived laboratory notebooks. Millipore is a life science leader providing cutting-edge technologies, tools, and services for bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. Consisting of four full-time…

The author, a student adviser in a Student Support Services (TRIO) program, took an introductory psychology course in order to study students' note-taking behaviors. The most important finding was that students copied the terminology the instructor wrote on the board, but failed to take notes on the examples he used to clarify the terms.…

In a third-year medical school hematology course, handouts reproducing all or most of the 35mm slides used during the lecture are given at the beginning of class. The slides are reproduced on the left, with room for note-taking on the right. Despite some disadvantages, the method is seen as helpful. (Author/MSE)

Objective: In this exercise, students collectively summarize a long and perhaps difficult reading into a shorter, more condensed version of itself; in the process, students experience the virtues of teamwork (the divide and conquer approach), gain valuable reading and note-taking skills, and collectively distill the essence of a reading in class.…

Carleton University (Ottawa, Canada) has successfully used three methods to help hearing impaired students take notes: (1) blind or visually impaired students take notes for hearing impaired students; (2) professors provide copies of their lecture notes; and (3) teaching assistants take notes in the classroom. (Author/CB)

A system is described in which students are assigned to keep minutes for each class, read the minutes to the next class, and submit them for grading. The approach is helpful to both teachers and students throughout the course in diagnosing problems, introducing grading criteria, and reinforcing basic skills. (MSE)

Describes a study in New South Wales (Australia) that used cable-linked notebook computers as a notetaking system for hearing-impaired students. The Phones for the Deaf Program is explained, and benefits of the notebook computer system are discussed, including greater efficiency, less intrusiveness, and more complete classroom participation. (LRW)

Describes a community-college-level developmental reading skills course that was revised to decrease the number of skills in which students needed to show competency to make room for a notetaking skills unit. (RS)

Lectures can present barriers to learning for many students and although online multimedia materials have become technically easier to create and offer many benefits for learning and teaching, they can be difficult to access, manage, and exploit. This article considers how research on interacting with multimedia can inform developments in using…

Slide shows presented with software such as PowerPoint or WordPerfect Presentations can trap instructors into bad teaching practices. Research on memory suggests that slide-show instruction can actually be less effective than traditional lecturing when the teacher uses a blackboard or overhead projector. The author proposes a model of classroom…