Grasp it or lose it?

One of key skills to attain accelerated career path is to take notes. Per my personal experience, I like to do the note-taking process, as I know how to enjoy it and utilize this skill to 100% grasp everything discussed thus decided in all (strategic) meetings. I am a type of individual who have suck short-term memory, like to multitask during the meeting (listening, thinking, synthesizing, and note-taking), and are evidence-based (this is so useful if in the future misunderstanding occurs so you have some keying points to say).

Note-taking is not a rocket science, in which everybody is able to learn, master, and get used to. We do not need a diploma to attain this skill. You come to a point where you have a solid understanding of the importance of note-taking, which is good. There is no a solid formula to define a good note-taking though. You need to be getting accustomed to your own pace of writing, regardless of your speed level of note-taking. Once you master the note-taking, your speed is surely going up. I acknowledge that from my experience.

However, some other tribes would vocally say the unimportance of note-taking, cuz they feel like they would remember anything upon the completion of the meeting. But hey, if you are of this type, I am sure you are going to be likely wasting time here to read, so staying away right now is a good time. Seriously though you underestimate the impact of note-taking itself. Why you are still reading until this sentence? Uh I know, you are curious  of the offer I have here? Well, there is no such things like too old to learn new skill, even me am starting to learn how to ride a motorcycle when I was 24. There went some proud moment when you acquired new skill and that is a true definition of achievement.

Disclaimer:

- Reading this will make you a superstar.

- Read this while you are on a shape of learning.

- Following this formula will make you genuinely "scariest" person on the floor. By the scariest I mean you have everything as an exhibit for future use and reference.

- Getting used to this practice will make your career skyrocketed.

If it feels like you forget new information almost as quickly as you hear it, even if you write it down, that’s because tend to lose almost 40% of new information within the first 24 hours of first reading or hearing it. If we take notes effectively, however, we can retain and retrieve almost 100% of the information we receive.

Learning how to retain information.

The most effective note-taking skills involve active rather than passive learning. Active learning places the responsibility for learning on the learner. Based on research, for learning to be effective, we need to be doing things with the material we are engaging with (reading, writing, discussing, solving problems).

We must also be thinking about the thinking (metacognition) involved in engaging with the material. This means that, while we are learning the content, we should also be thinking about how we are learning it. 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? 

Studies have found note-taking is most effective when notes are organized and transformed in some way. An effective note-taking strategy requires effort. Half the battle with us is helping ourselves understand the reasons for needing to take and interact regularly with our notes.

We often tell teachers we have excellent memories and don’t need to take notes cuz we can easily recall information.Research says this is not the case, and we are too confident, which is not really good.

The goal of effective note taking is to help recall what has been learned and retain that information over time. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1895 conducted some of the first experiments on memory and recall, and spaced learning. He developed the forgetting curve, which shows how information is lost quickly over time if there is no strategy or effort to retain it.

Figure 1: Rate of Forgetting with Study/Repetition

The rate of forgetting is minimized if we interact (re-read/discuss/write/engage) with our notes within 24 hours. A second repetition for a shorter period of time within a day brings recall back up to 100%. A third repetition within a week for an even shorter time brings recall back to 100%.

What are the most effective ways to take notes?

Effective note taking is interactive and involves using the original notes many times over to build memory of the content, rather than seeing note taking as just a one-off copying activity. The important features of this system are captured in the images below.

Figure 2: Sample of AVID’s Application of Cornell Notes in Language Arts

Figure 3: Sample of AVID’s Application of Cornell Notes in Chemistry

There are three stages to good note taking:

In note-taking, we:

• Prepare a page to take notes the same way each time. An essential question at the top of the page focuses the learner on the key learning objective that we should be able to discuss upon leaving the meeting room.

• Rule the page into two columns, with the first column taking up about a third of the page. The space on the left is for questions and notes that may be added in later as students reflect on their notes. The space on the right is for the us to take notes from the our direct line’s fast scratch on a whiteboards, dictation, or important points unwritten.

• Listen and take notes in our own words – paraphrase what we hear, so it makes sense to us rather than write down verbatim what we hear/see.

• Leave spaces and lines between main ideas for revising later and adding information.

• Develop their own consistent system of abbreviations and symbols to save time as they take notes.

• Write in phrases, not complete sentences.

• Use bullet points and lists where possible.

• Learn how to listen for important information versus trivial information.

• Take cues from the the “lecturer” or source, e.g. “This is important…,” “Here is the deal…,” “Pay attention…” “So, this is the plan/point/thing.”

• Use highlighters and color to indicate key ideas, changes in concepts or links between information.

In note-making, we:

• Review and revise the content of our notes.

• Write questions in the left-hand side near where the answer is contained on the right-hand side.

• Connect key chunks of material in the notes pages using color or symbols

• Exchange ideas and collaborate with other attendees to check for understanding and test the comprehensiveness of each other’s notes.

In note-interacting, we:

• Link all the learning together by writing a summary that addresses the essential question and answers the questions from the left margin (note that a summary is different from a reflection that focuses on the student’s response to the learning task or content).

• Learn from their notes by building in to their study timetable regular times for revising their notes for each subject.

Sometimes, I do some random scratches nearside the page of my active note book so I would be able to recall the overall points of the meeting and get the sense of ambiance and thus detailed memories/environment. The result is awesome.