Tag: lectures

How I make notes: From recorded lectures

Posted on by study.skills

Photo of Gloria, the author of this blog postby Gloria Bosi, Mechanical Engineering student and Bristol Futures Advocate

While a lot of us were lucky to make a long-awaited return to campus this year, hybrid learning means that pre-recorded lectures are still a core part of our academic lives. With new videos coming every week, efficient notetaking is an essential skill to have. It’s not always as easy as it seems! You want to write just enough that you can understand your notes when you look back at them, but not so much that you are just copying the slides. You may also want to pause the video occasionally, but without tripling the time it takes for you to watch it. It’s a delicate balance that needs to be mastered. Lucky for you, I am here to help.

I’m Gloria, a third-year Mechanical Engineering student and Bristol Futures Advocate. With almost 2 years of online university under my belt, I want to share my top tips for taking notes from recorded lectures. I recommend trying the following things:

1. Doing the prep work

Skimming through the lecture slides before watching a recording helps me retain information better. I don’t own a tablet or printer, so there’s no easy way for me to take notes directly on the slides. Peeking in advance allows me to get a better look at any complicated diagrams or words that I need to write down. Once I know what to expect from the slides, I can focus better on what the lecturer is saying in the recording. Most importantly, skimming through the slides helps me build a mental picture of how I want to take notes for the topic.

2. Pausing with caution

Continuously pausing a lecture recording is dangerous business. It can easily double or triple the time it takes to finish watching. If this sounds familiar, try to be pickier about when you choose to pause the video. Ask yourself: did you really miss something that will stop you from understanding the topic as a whole? Another way to save time and avoid pauses is to come up with your own shorthand notations. Remember that your notes are not a textbook, and they don’t need to be written in full sentences. You’re the only one who needs to be able to understand them! If something confuses you or you happen to get stuck, don’t let that stop you from finishing the video. Write a post-it note or mark the sentence that confused you and keep watching. When you finish the lecture recording, you can ask about this on Blackboard discussion forums and return to it when you get a response.

3. Don’t be afraid to use colour!

Try using different coloured pens to distinguish between notes taken directly from the slides and those based off what the lecturer is saying. If you’re a visual learner like me, this can really help with information retention and memory.

4. Writing summaries

After a long note-taking session, don’t forget to write a brief summary of what you learnt. If possible, check this against the intended learning outcomes of the lecture to ensure you didn’t miss anything.

5. Finding what works for you

Don’t be afraid to try new methods. Remember that there’s no single right way of taking notes! In fact, the same method might not work across different modules if the content delivery varies. In this new hybrid learning environment, it’s especially important to diversify your note-taking approaches and find what works for you. Finally, if you’re not sure how to structure your notes by yourself, you can try an existing method, such as Cornell notes. You can read more about this here.

Hope you enjoyed the post, and leave a comment to let us know your best note-taking tips!

Student Advocate tips for… time management

Posted on by study.skills

 

Statue of Gromit (from Wallace and Gromit) decorated with clocks

Our Bristol Futures Student Advocates come from every faculty in the university, and are here to support you to grow your skills and become an even better student.

We asked them to share their top tips for time management. Here’s what they said…

Pretend that you’re working a 9 to 5 Job

My top tip on how to manage time is to  always work from 9-5 on your studies (if you don’t already have a 9-5 job!). How this works is that from Monday to Friday, you should do your uni work, attend classes, make notes, or revise between 9am and 5pm. This is a great tactic as if you find that you’re only in uni in the morning, then you can come home and work till 5pm and still enjoy the rest of your day! On the contrast, if you’ve been in uni straight from 9am till 5pm, then odds are that it was a pretty long and tiresome day and so you can rest assured that you’ve worked your 9-5 already and deserve to rest for the remainder of your day and recharge! I used this studying tactic for 5 years in dental school and it’s meant that all of my evenings are free, I don’t have to cram to catch-up on revision and I can spend my weekends however I like 🥳. Sina, 5th year Dental student

I agree with Sina, I started trying to pretend it’s a 9 to 5 job recently and it’s really been helping me. I still often go over time because there’s just so much to do but I still try and it’s really helpful. At least to try and work a “normal” amount of hours and not cut back on sleep. Martina, 2nd year Medical Biochemistry 

Schedule everything

I schedule societies’ activities, the time I spend with friends, work out, etc I still have a lot of online lectures so what I find useful is listing down all the ones I need to do for the week and also writing down how long they will take me (it’s even more useful if your professors give you a rough indication of how long they think it’s going to take). I then schedule it on my calendar (I like using Google Calendar because it syncs across devices really quickly) and try to stick to the plan. For example, for the readings, if my professor suggested it should take 10 minutes I try to stick to that because it probably means I don’t need to be spending more time than that on it. This way I know I don’t need to be studying it in a lot of details but just read through it to get an overall idea.
When planning I like to leave some extra time, so I either schedule online lectures as longer than planned or actually schedule in a two/three-hour slot on a Friday afternoon that I’m leaving free, this way if I fall behind I know I have some extra time without having to work on weekends and if I don’t fall behind it just means I have more free time! Martina, 2nd year Medical Biochemistry 

Make sure you are aware of all your deadlines and what to do for each one. Then make a plan based on that. Try to finish your task a few days before the hard deadline just to give yourself some extra time for any unexpected situations. Manshika, 3rd year Economics and Finance 

Take advantage of all the moments in your day

There are many brief periods over the course of your day where you are waiting around e.g. on a commute, for an event to begin, for meeting up with a friend, etc.. By adding all these up, it can result in a substantial amount of time. You can turn all these periods where you are usually just waiting around into a useful source of time if you make your work mobile and accessible at all times. I personally always have some work available offline on my phone to read, or quiz myself on, so I make the most of my time. Emma, 4th year Veterinary Science

Bristol Futures Student Advocates run peer support sessions for students in their faculty. Check out the Study Skills Blackboard page to see what’s coming up.

 

 

Student Advocate tips for… making the most of lectures

Posted on by study.skills

Students in a banked lecture theatre

Our Bristol Futures Student Advocates come from every faculty in the university, and are here to support you to grow your skills and become an even better student.

We asked them to share their top tips for making the most of lectures. Here’s what they said…

Don’t copy everything!

If you just copy what the lecturer wrote down, you are not going to absorb and digest what the lecturer’s main point is. Even worse, you wouldn’t know if the lecturer makes a mistake. Instead, pay full attention to listening to what the lecturer is saying first. After a few sentences, think about what is the main point conveyed in what is written down on the board (or presented on the slide). And then, use your own words to jot down any key points. If you can’t catch them, need not to worry! Simply watch the recorded lecture later and pause as you go. If the lecture is not recorded, it would be nice if you can email the lecturer asking for clarification on such topics. They would be happy to help!

You will be panicked by the fact that while everyone in the hall is ferociously writing, while you are sitting there, only listening. But remember, you are also paying your full attention to the lecture, and you have done nothing less than your classmates did! Ryan, 2nd year Mathematics

Use questions for learning

As you watch the lecture clearly flag any concepts/areas that you don’t fully understand and formulate (and write down) specific questions that you think could get you the answers you need.

This habit helps provide structure and direction to your reflection/revision process after the lecture, as you know exactly what you need to follow up on talking to the lecturer or extra research/reading. I have found this makes my learning more efficient (by saving you from repeatedly covering content you know/understand in order to locate what you are less clear on) and more effective (as your learning becomes targeted to any weak points).  Emily, 3rd year Biomedical Sciences

 

Bristol Futures Student Advocates run peer support sessions for students in their faculty. Check out the Study Skills Blackboard page to see what’s coming up.

 

 

How I make notes: The 5Rs

Posted on by study.skills

Photo of Molly, the author of this blog post By Molly Jackson, Translational Health Sciences student and Bristol Futures Advocate

The way we take notes is a big influence on how well we learn, and this differs greatly between individuals. As students we are often told to make notes throughout our lectures and use them to answer exam questions and provide essays with references to both literature written by experts in the field and our own opinions. This is often overwhelming, especially when we are provided with a high volume of information in a lecture and do not know where to start with how to record this information into notes.

After struggling in my first and second years of university with extensive pages of long notes piled on my desk never to be revisited, I began to wonder if there was a method out there to make use of notes as well as just making them. Following some extensive googling and asking fellow students on their approach to notetaking, I decided to try the Cornell method which breaks down notetaking into 5 easy stages…

An overview of the 5Rs of note taking, adapted from the Cornell Method (Pauk 2001). Record. Make note of the key facts you learn throughout your lecture. Reduce. Summarise key facts into short bullet points. Recite. Write out your short bullet points into a resource that can be revisited. Reflect. Use the bullet points as a starting point to develop your own opinions. How does it relate to other topics you’ve learned? How is this relevant to literature currently published in the field? How can you apply your critical thinking to this topic? Review. Regularly review the resources you develop in the lead up to exams or as part of essay preparation.
An overview of the 5 Rs of note taking, adapted from the Cornell method (Pauk 2001)

I found that using this approach breaks down complicated topics into bitesize pieces that can be used to build back into a bigger picture with wider reading and your own opinions. The best thing about using this method is that, as we all learn in different ways, this approach can be tailored to the individual and gives you a chance to be creative. For example, for the visual learners, the recite and review stage could be carried out in the form of a diagram or mind map, and for auditory learners, in the form of a song. It has also been scientifically proven that this technique is highly effective in a range of disciplines!*

Page split into 5 sections titled record, reduce/ recite, review, reflect - relevant literature, and reflect - own opinion. There are notes in each section on the subject of Parkinson's Disease.
Notes for a final year essay

The only question left to ask is what is what kind of learner are you and how can you build this into the 5Rs approach to develop achieve note taking success?

 

*Some examples of the evidence:
  • Evans B and Shively C. Using the Cornell Note-Taking System Can Help Eighth Grade Students Alleviate the Impact of Interruptions While Reading at Home. Journal of Inquiry and Action in Education. 2019;10:1-35.
  • Donohoo J. Learning How to Learn: Cornell Notes as an Example. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. 2010;54:224-227.
  • Hayati A and Jalilifar A. The Impact of Note-taking Strategies on Listening Comprehension of EFL Learners. English Language Teaching. 2009;2.
  • Quintus L, Borr M, Duffield S, Napoleon L and Welch A. The impact of the Cornell note-taking method on students’ performance in a high school family and consumer sciences class. Family and Consumer Sciences Research Journal. 2012;30:27-38.