In a traditional sense, we usually think of notes as handwritten texts from a class lecture. This point of view stems from the experience of primary/secondary education, where students attend class to learn about a certain topic, then go home to practice the different versions of the knowledge they have obtained. However, when they move on to higher education, the student’s biggest challenge stems from encountering self-teaching and the necessity to develop a personal system for notetaking. Gone are the days of schoolwide required Cornell notes with required “upper-level questions” and a concise summary, and an abrupt welcome into a self-sufficient academic environment.
How do students fare when the knowledge to be recorded isn’t preemptively selected for them? How does one decipher what is important and necessary to be recorded? When students aren’t given a point of focus, how do they retain, review, and analyze information?
To begin with, what constitutes notetaking? Notetaking is a way to create a record of an academic lecture/discussion to recall knowledge and improve the retention of the acquired information. College classes can be visually or orally focused, meaning students have to be active listeners and participants when it comes to learning. Every day they write new information that needs to be stored for either short-term or long-term usage.
As I interviewed different students on FSU’s campus, I realized there is a divide in notetaking methodology. There are two methods, longhand notes, and electronic notes, and both have positive and negative effects on educational outcomes. Longhand allows students to actively participate in their notetaking, as it requires more concentration and doesn’t include the distractions presented in electronics. However, they can be easily misplaced and can’t be edited as thoroughly as digital notes. Electronic notes allow students to efficiently store/categorize their notes, including pictures, videos, and hyperlinks, allowing the student to edit their notes later and are sharable. However, it also places the student in a situation where they can be easily distracted by other digital applications and notifications. There is also the combination of both with iPads and paper tablets, giving students the advantages of both methods.
This exhibit will illustrate the different methods students from different majors use to take notes. Different majors require different skills, so this exhibit provided an outlook into how students fluidly move between the two methods to adapt to their personal and academic needs.
Credits
Aisha Louis