

The goal of effective note taking is to help recall what has been learned and retain that information over time. Students often tell teachers they have excellent memories and don’t need to take notes because they can easily recall information. Half the battle with students is helping them understand the reasons for needing to take and interact regularly with their notes. An effective note-taking strategy requires effort. Studies have found note taking is most effective when notes are organised and transformed in some way or when a teacher gives examples of good notes. What is causing confusion? How does your thinking change about this topic as you are learning? What has worked well for you in learning this topic that you should do next time? What hasn’t worked so well so you don’t make that learning mistake again? This means that, while students are learning the content, they should also be thinking about how they are learning it. They must also be thinking about the thinking ( metacognition) involved in engaging with the material. Research has found that, for learning to be effective, students need to be doing things with the material they are engaging with (reading, writing, discussing, solving problems). Active learning places the responsibility for learning on the learner. The most effective note-taking skills involve active rather than passive learning. If we take notes effectively, however, we can retain and retrieve almost 100% of the information we receive. If it feels like you forget new information almost as quickly as you hear it, even if you write it down, that’s because we tend to lose almost 40% of new information within the first 24 hours of first reading or hearing it.
