Upgrade Your Note-Taking the Easy Way
Summary
TLDRThe video discusses effective note-taking strategies for students to enhance productivity. It emphasizes creating a single canvas for each topic, allowing students to build and refine their notes continuously. The speaker highlights the importance of conceptual understanding in subjects like math and literature, suggesting that students focus on big-picture ideas and relationships rather than rote memorization. Techniques such as pre-studying, annotating, and reorganizing notes are recommended. The speaker also shares personal experiences with various apps and emphasizes the importance of understanding the author's perspective in literature to improve essay writing. The goal is to develop a holistic and flexible approach to learning.
Takeaways
- 📚 Emphasize the importance of organizing notes by topics or themes rather than by individual classes or lectures to create a comprehensive understanding.
- 🖌️ Develop a 'single canvas' system where students continuously build upon their notes, integrating new information with existing knowledge.
- 🗂️ Gradually transition from traditional typed notes to a more freehand, visual approach, starting with pre-study notes and expanding them during and after lectures.
- 📝 Encourage students to refine and reorganize their notes post-lecture to correct any mistakes and enhance their understanding.
- 💡 For math, focus on conceptual understanding rather than purely procedural learning. Understand the 'why' behind formulas and equations.
- 🔄 Practice procedural aspects of subjects, such as solving equations in math, but keep the main conceptual notes separate from procedural practice.
- 🎥 When writing essays, especially for literature, encourage students to think like the author or director, understanding their decisions and the context behind them.
- 🔍 Research the background of authors or directors to better understand their work and make deeper connections in essays.
- 🧠 Use memorization tools like flashcards or mnemonic methods sparingly and primarily for rote memorization of unrelated or minor content.
- ✍️ For essays, focus on understanding themes, character motivations, and the connections between them rather than memorizing specific quotes or passages.
Q & A
What is the ultimate goal in organizing notes for college students?
-The ultimate goal is to have a single canvas for all notes related to a specific topic, allowing students to continuously build and construct on top of that. This method helps in organizing notes effectively and makes it easier to review for exams.
How can students gradually transition into using a single canvas for note-taking?
-Students can start by creating a basic framework or outline during pre-study, focusing on main ideas and relationships for the upcoming lectures. During lectures, they can annotate this framework and later refine, reorganize, and consolidate it.
What should students do if they find the single canvas method overwhelming?
-If the single canvas method is overwhelming, students can start by typing notes during lectures and then consolidating them onto the canvas later. Alternatively, they can use a scribble pad for key ideas during the lecture and then add those to the canvas afterward.
Why did the speaker stop using multiple apps and tools for note-taking?
-The speaker realized that using multiple apps and tools was unnecessary as their learning requirements increased. They found that a single method of note-taking that offloads cognitive resources and allows higher-order thinking is more effective.
What is the speaker's current note-taking method?
-The speaker now primarily uses an Infinite Canvas for note-taking. The only exception is for information that needs to be memorized, in which case they use a flashcard app or other memorization tools.
How does the speaker approach note-taking for mathematics?
-For mathematics, the speaker emphasizes the importance of conceptual understanding before focusing on numbers and procedures. They recommend organizing notes conceptually to understand the purpose, big picture, and application of mathematical concepts.
How does the speaker approach note-taking for essays, especially literature or movie reviews?
-For essays, the speaker suggests understanding the main themes, the author's or director's background, and the relationships between characters and themes. They also recommend practicing good writing skills separately and using past exam questions for practice.
What are the benefits of understanding the author's or director's background when writing essays?
-Understanding the author's or director's background helps in making authentic connections between themes, characters, and motifs. It provides insight into why certain creative decisions were made, making it easier to write insightful essays.
What advice does the speaker give for procedural practice in mathematics?
-The speaker advises practicing equations and questions separately while being guided by confidence and certainty about the concepts. They emphasize the importance of understanding the conceptual framework first before engaging in procedural practice.
What can teachers or professors do to make note-taking easier for students?
-Teachers and professors can focus on helping students develop a strong conceptual understanding of the material. They can also encourage the use of single-canvas note-taking methods and allow students to bring formula sheets or cheat sheets to focus more on conceptual learning.
Outlines
📚 Effective Note-Taking Strategies for Students
The speaker discusses productivity in relation to note-taking for college students. They emphasize the importance of having a single canvas for all notes on a particular topic, which might span multiple lectures. This method allows students to build and continuously add to their notes. The speaker suggests starting with a basic framework of key ideas before lectures, then annotating during lectures, and finally refining and reorganizing the notes afterward. They share their personal journey of experimenting with various apps and methods, ultimately settling on an infinite canvas for note-taking. They recommend using flashcards for rote memorization and various mnemonic techniques for retaining information.
🧠 Conceptual Understanding in Mathematics
The speaker highlights the importance of understanding mathematical concepts without numbers first. They criticize the common approach of learning math procedurally and advocate for a conceptual understanding, which is crucial for solving complex problems with multiple variables. The speaker shares their experience of re-learning math through a conceptual lens and how it changed their perspective. They explain that while procedural practice is still necessary, understanding the big picture and relationships between concepts is key. This approach makes learning math more interesting and effective.
📖 Writing Effective Essays
The speaker explains the process of writing essays, particularly focusing on literature reviews and creative writing. They suggest reading the book thoroughly and understanding the author's or director's background to gain insight into the themes and characters. This knowledge helps in making authentic connections and writing better essays. The speaker discourages memorizing pre-written essays and emphasizes understanding the themes and motifs. They also mention creating possible exam questions and practicing good writing skills to improve essay performance.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Productivity
💡Note-Taking
💡Conceptual Understanding
💡Non-linear Note-Taking
💡Canvas
💡Pre-Study
💡Annotation
💡Schema
💡Flashcard
💡Infinite Canvas
💡Method of Loci
💡Essay Writing
💡Thematic Analysis
Highlights
The ultimate goal of note-taking is to have a single canvas for all notes related to a specific topic, enabling continuous construction and refinement.
Students should start by creating a basic frame of main ideas before lectures, gradually building on it with annotations and reorganizing the notes afterward.
Transitioning to non-linear note-taking can be phased, starting with pre-study notes and moving towards an Infinite Canvas approach.
The focus of note-taking should be on offloading cognitive resources to enable higher-order thinking and representing concepts in an easy-to-navigate format.
The Infinite Canvas method simplifies note-taking by consolidating information into a single, easy-to-navigate format.
For rote memorization, tools like flashcard apps with algorithmic space repetition or memorization techniques such as the method of loci can be useful.
Understanding math conceptually, rather than procedurally, is key to mastering complex problems and equations.
Students should focus on understanding the purpose and big picture of math concepts before diving into procedural practice.
Conceptual understanding in math can lead to better problem-solving, especially when dealing with multi-variable contexts like physics.
For math notes, the focus should be on relationships between concepts rather than procedural practice, which can be done separately.
When studying literature or films, understanding the author's or director's background and creative decisions can provide deeper insights into themes and characters.
To excel in literature or film essays, students should think like the author or director, connecting themes and motifs to the creator's personal experiences or intentions.
Creating a list of possible exam questions and practicing answers can help students apply their conceptual understanding effectively.
The procedural aspect of essay writing requires good writing skills, which can be developed through practice and feedback.
Teachers and professors can support students by encouraging conceptual understanding and providing tools for effective note organization.
Transcripts
I wanted to ask you a little bit more
about
productivity in relation to notes
do you teach any way for students to
organize their notes like if you're in
college you have multiple classes
studying for a midterm or final there's
multiple chapters go through going to
class you take notes and then you have
to eventually review for an exam so is
there some kind of organizational system
that you recommend your students for
notes uh it depends completely on their
level of skill and how comfortable they
are with it the ultimate goal you want
to end up at is that you have sort of
like a single canvas that all of your
notes for that particular topic are on
so when I say topic for a university
that might be like you know four or five
lectures of that week you know so it's
not like one canvas for every paper so
like all of biology or chemistry
but for within within that like for
example uh redox or Organics or for um
you know I don't know like cellular
transport whatever that topic is you
want to have sort of one canvas and you
want to be building on it and then
constructing on top of that continuously
but that's quite difficult to do if
someone doesn't have like a really good
method of non-linear note taking that
allows them to build on effectively so
in that case you sort of just try to
phase your way into it so for example if
you're mostly typed at the moment and
we're trying to go into more freehand
then one great way of doing that would
be like in your pre-study in the weekend
before the week's worth of lectures
coming up write some notes on all four
or five lectures coming up that week and
for those lectures all you want to do is
just get the main ideas and just create
some big groups and some major
relationships like for four or five
lectures you might have like literally
15 words on the page 15 keywords that
you have like Okay so this the next five
lectures like basically talking about
this topic where this kind of goes to
this and then there's this and then we
learn about this process and then how
that can be used in these kind of
applications just that very very very
basic frame let me start there and then
from there if we're feeling confident
enough with it and we want to give it a
go we can take that into lecture and
then we can annotate on top of that
during the lecture and then afterwards
we can look through that clean it up
simplify it re-jigs the structure
reorganize it and you realize I put this
Arrow going this way that's actually
wrong it has to be this way and we can
reorganize it after that and that's a
little overwhelming then we can just
start with that frame in the pre-study
we can type up the notes while we're in
the lecture and then afterwards we can
try to take our type notes and then
consolidate them onto this map or even
if that's too much then we can just have
that scribble pad idea that I talked
about before where we just you know have
those things next to us as we're going
through and then after you've got that
scribble pad you can look at it and just
take some of the key ideas you got from
that and try to add that to your map but
the idea is that over time we want to be
less and less dependent on all these
other things and more and more using
just kind of like a single canvas I
really went through like very long kind
of uh not very straightforward journey
in terms of how I used to write notes
because I use like every single app
there was like I was the person that
really Min maxed every single app like I
like
five six different apps probably even
more because I have like
scanning apps and then like software
like text recognition that allows me to
then like and then moving on to my
Evernote and then going for my Evernote
and then like syncing up with like Rome
or like notion and then creating like a
relationship and then like create you
know processing that and something else
so I used to have multiple steps to do
this over time and as the amount I've
needed to learn has gone up and the
knowledge requirements I've needed to
have gone up and as I've had less and
less time to just sit and study I've
realized that it's really pretty
unnecessary all I need is a method of
note taking that allows me to offload
cognitive resources to allow me to do
higher order thinking and to represent
that schema in the single format that's
easy to use and easy to navigate so for
me now I virtually use just one Infinite
Canvas and that's basically it the only
exception would be if there are things
that are seemingly unrelated seemingly
meaningless but you still need to know
it for your test or exam and that's the
stuff that you need to wrote memorize so
you'd use a flashcard app something with
algorithmic space repetition to make
sure that you're able to hold on to that
content or audio you some other type of
memorization tool my go-to is a
combination of method of loci and Link
method or story method I think I might
even have a video on YouTube teaching my
kind of version of that because it's a
little bit different and I put that in
my Infinite Canvas directly or
very very very very very rarely and I
haven't used this for years now I'll use
like a power system Pao but that's it's
just so time consuming to set up a pal
table that I just I haven't used that
and haven't needed that for years and
now I I don't really need to rope
memorize anything anymore like ever so I
don't use that at all but if I was going
back to like if I would have studied
medicine again I would probably do
something like that okay so on this
topic a student comes and asks you what
do your what do your mathematic notes
look like and what do your notes look
like for a class where you have to write
like three essays technical versus
non-technical nodes yeah so let's let's
do the maths one first so if you talk to
well I guess not talk to you about it if
you listen to uh like some of the top
professors of mathematics in the world
and I can't name names because I'm just
not that familiar but I've I've seen
these videos and I've seen these
interviews with you know like World
leading you know mathematicians like
prodigies one of the things that they
often say is that when you learn math
and this is a big problem with how math
is often taught is that you want to
learn maths without the numbers first
you want to have a conceptual
understanding of mass because just like
how you would understand it and biology
or physics or chemistry or any other
like political science or economics just
like how you'd understand concepts for
those subjects understanding concepts
for math is equally important in fact
it's even arguably more important
because when you see a problem and it's
not just like differentiate this you
know or like find the area under the
curve where it's just like simple Plug
and Play when it's bringing it together
in different contexts and now it's not
just like numbers but it's like the
velocity of this particular thing and
like the you know force of gravity
acting you know when there's multiple
variables stacked on top of it what
allows you to actually solve it is to
conceptually understand how you can
approach that in the first place and
then what follows from that is knowing
what the equations are but what a lot of
people do is they look at Mass purely
procedurally and they look at an
isolation and so when they look at a
problem what they're trying to do is
just pattern recognition
they're trying to say can I get the
variables represented in here to fit
into any of the equations that I know
about and therefore people will use
equations incorrectly people will say oh
this is the letter e and here's the
letter e and it's like oh it must be the
same thing and they'll use it that way
you know very common for physics the
equation will be used out of context
like it's not really meant to be used in
that way but they'll sort of jankly fit
it in there or they'll just constantly
be like seeing okay can I make this a
simultaneous equation blah blah or
they'll just mindlessly work through it
until they feel like it looks like
something a bit more familiar and
they're like oh yes I've stumbled upon
it there's it's a very inconsistent way
of doing maths and I'll be the first
person to say that's the entirety of how
I learn Mass actually like personally
but for for whatever reason like I
started getting into this YouTube
channel called number file which talks
about like theoretical mathematics and I
was like man math is really interesting
and then so I started learning math
again but like purely conceptually first
and I've got to tell you like it just
completely changed the view on how I
think about paths so with mass there's
not that many Concepts not as much as
something like biology or physics or
chemistry or the Sciences or even
something like politics or economics or
things like that it's actually very easy
to do this entire process we've been
talking about you just look at what
you're being taught and you say well
what's the purpose of it what's the big
picture how can I apply it why is that
actually important and how is that
similar to these other things that I've
learned how are they all related
together and then you can group those
things in a very similar way and now
you've got okay so we've got these
equations that generally allow me to do
this there's these things that allow me
to do this and they're related because
you know this is the previous step or
you know I need to do this to create
this kind of variable so that I can
actually use it in this kind of process
and we get a really good conceptual
understanding of it and then the rest is
just procedural then you practice doing
the equations you practice your
questions you you make sure that you're
able to carry the three and you can
apply the chain rule effectively and all
those things but the good thing is that
with assessments these days a lot of
schools are varying towards allowing
people to bring like formula sheets or
cheat sheets they're allowing you to
actually have the equation or in some
cases they literally they give you like
a table of equations like in the actual
exam book itself so you don't have to
actually have memorized all these things
going into it so a lot of places will
now do that because they're trying to
get people to focus a little bit more on
the conceptual aspects of it so my notes
for saying like maths would look very
very similar I don't know if I've got a
public YouTube video where I have an
example of something like that but it
basically looks exactly the same we've
got those relationships we've got the
you know still looks like a map
what what wouldn't be on that is all the
practice that I'm doing so procedural
practice Yeah the procedural practice I
wouldn't have that on that canvas you
know I'm doing that on this is a normal
way that people are doing it but the
difference is I'm still being led by my
certainty and confidence about it like
we talked about before so basically
understanding math in words
gotcha that's very interesting um and
then for something like essays uh that
kind of depends I guess on the type of
essay that you're doing a very like
literate literature science heavy uh
kind of like research essay is going to
be very very different from like a
creative writing essay or um a text
response like a book study or a movie
study or something like that that's
going to be very different I'll focus a
little bit more on the sort of book
review movie review that type of essay
instead rather than the sort of I guess
in a way fact-based more scientific
essays because it's kind of a different
process there's quite a long thing to
talk about
um so you can apply the same thing it's
actually exactly the same principle but
just the way it's answered is a little
bit different so if I look at for
example I often give the example of 1984
by George Orwell number one because it's
still a common book that's used in a lot
of curriculums um and also because it's
one of my favorite books so 1984 uh by
George Orwell that that might be a book
that you're required to write an essay
about first of all just read the book
and you know like just literally read
the book but then afterwards when you're
trying to really create like good essays
out of it you're not really going to
know how what questions they're gonna
ask they're going to ask you a lot of
people will just try to predict the
answers and then write like the perfect
they're saying just memorize the essay
and then just like regurgitate it in the
assessment which is very time consuming
it's not very safe well I don't know how
important people think this is but I
personally think it's quite important is
that it's not enjoyable at all like if
I'm gonna be spending my time doing
something I'd rather do something that's
enjoyable as well as being effective
so when we're dissecting the book we can
think about well what are the main
themes and how are those themes similar
or different to each other and an
interesting thing here is that those
books or those movies were written by
people and those people made decisions
about inserting that theme they wanted
to portray a certain thing in a certain
way
and they made a decision about that but
why did they make that decision so what
you'll find is that if you spin like
literally I know 15 minutes reading on
Wikipedia about that author or
director's history and background you
would just start seeing like now this
movie actually makes sense like I can
see the perspective and the mindset that
this person had in their creative
process that made them insert this
character like this character is a
representation of their Kenya spent as a
police officer this person is the
representation of like the manager that
they struggled with like this person it
represents the thoughts that they had
while they were serving in the military
you start seeing the origin stories of
all of these and then when you see how
they're relating together you're able to
draw more authentic connections so I
always say if you were the director or
the author going into the assessment and
you have to write about your own work
you would crush it so that's the goal
you want to think like the author or the
director and so all these decisions that
you made in theme games and characters
and examples and motifs and you know
literary techniques and things
these are things that are like natural
and obvious to you you know why you did
it that way and why you didn't do it
another way so that's the kind of way
that you should be thinking about it you
don't often have to remember like exact
specific wordings of sentences and
things and even if you do need to
remember quotes you're unlikely to need
to remember more than just like a couple
and even when you do remember the way
you integrate it is usually only just
like a few words like boom you know the
author described it as like blob like
three words this is the way they
described it and usually you don't even
have to remember that because when you
think about it conceptually it's like
yes this makes sense why they chose to
use these words because it was creating
this type of impact so
um my notes for that would reflect that
process I'd have sort of that author's
background or whatever way that I'm
linking it together I talk about sort of
their main rationales and drivers and
then sort of what themes have led from
that and therefore the relationships and
the characters and the examples that
were there and then there's a procedural
component I'm going to create a list of
possible exam questions and past papers
and I'm going to use that knowledge and
answer those because the best of my
ability and there's going to be an
aspect of just good writing and being
elegant and your wording and phrasing
and things like that and that's that's
really just a completely separate skill
set and you just have to do good writing
and get good feedback to just get better
at that but in terms of actually
constructing the flow and being able to
perform in an exam effectively that's
where it's going to be at
what can teachers
or professors do to to make it easier
for students
[Music]
تصفح المزيد من مقاطع الفيديو ذات الصلة
5.0 / 5 (0 votes)