Notetaking in Bio 93

We have noticed students take notes in many ways in Bio 93. Some of those ways are more helpful than others, and we want to maximize your effectiveness. Below, we list what we think are the primary goals for notetaking in the biology core courses at UCI, common problems, plus some strategies for you to choose from.

Goal #1: LEARN while in class

Don’t focus on capture. Instead, use note-taking to force you to pay attention and think about the information as it appears.

Goal #2: Incorporate FIGURES

Figures are an important part of biological science – the things we study have physical shapes, or we use diagrams to help emphasize process. Your notetaking needs to incorporate these figures.

 

Common Problems with Notetaking in Bio 93:

Some students underestimate the importance of the figures (perhaps because taking notes is easier without worrying about them), and do not record important learning associated with the pictures on the slides. We commonly see:

• hand-written notes in a spiral notebook, but no hand-drawn figures in the margin
• typed notes in a word-processing program, but no inclusion of the figure images
• printed PowerPoint slides for notes, but slides are too small to write on the figures

 

Other students overestimate the usefulness of PowerPoint because that’s what the instructor provides, and think using PowerPoint to take notes is therefore ideal. We see:

• students taking notes in the “Notes” box for each powerpoint slide, rather than taking notes ON the slide and on the figures
• students focus on typing fast and “transcribing” everything the professor says, rather than just the important points
• students hanging out on Facebook until new words appear on the slides on the screen, and then copying those words down on their slide before going back to browsing.

 

Now that you have thought about common mistakes students make, and what your goal for notetaking in Bio 93 should be, how do we recommend you take notes?

Strategies:

After lots of discussion with faculty, TAs, struggling students and excellent students, we’ve decided to present our notetaking strategies in categories depending on how strong your biology background is, and whether you have decided to use paper or digital notetaking.

 

The “Lecture is Too Fast” Student

Many students have not had AP Biology, or have language barriers, or are anxious about understanding the material. It’s common for these students to transcribe the teacher’s words instead of summarizing them (for fear of missing something), or use a laptop “so I can keep up” but then be distracted by other online activities. For these students, we recommend the following:

• Look over the instructor’s notes and do the reading before class. Come into class confident that you know what will be covered.
• If the teacher “talks too fast,” get an audio recorder or use the class recording. Focus on listening and summarizing, and fill in gaps later.
• Spend class time thinking. Mark when you are confused so you can look up answers later, and get TA or instructor help with specific problems.
• When the instructor talks about a figure, use arrows and text to copy what they say is important. Do this ON the figure, not away from it.
• Keep your notes organized. If your TA says, “turn in your notes to ribosomes” you should know right where that is and be able to get to it easily.

 

Laptop Users

Paper Users

Turn off wifi. If you find yourself sliding into other digital distractions, switch to paper. Learn to take notes on your figures. PC users will benefit from learning how to use Microsoft OneNote. Mac laptop users have fewer “notetaking” software options, so learn how to nimbly write on slides in PowerPoint. Watch thisvideo for a good example. Get your notes set up in your chosen software BEFORE coming to class. This video shows you how to do so in PowerPoint.

Take advantage of the figures and outlines provided in the PowerPoint slides by printing them out and taking notes on them in class. Print slides at no more than 4 per page. “Saving money” or “saving trees” is not that helpful if it lowers your grades. Avoiding good printouts because of the cost of ink? Read up on purchasing generics from sites like inksmile.com, smartink.com, meritline.com, printronic.com or supermedia.com

 

Use class time to learn from the instructor, marking main points and noting confusions. Then take an hour after each class to rewrite and summarize your notes, look up confusions, and re-draw figures. You will more prepared for the exam than if you spent four hours re-reading the scribbled transcriptions you “captured” but didn’t understand.

 

 

The “Biology is Easy” Student

Many students come into introductory biology and feel like everything is obvious and simple and boring. Most of these student discover that, while the material in lecture is similar to that from their AP Biology course, the exams are at a much higher level of difficulty. Students who find themselves distracted in class because it is too slow need to spend that classtime pursuing a deeper understanding of the material. For these students, we recommend:

• Spend the time in lecture thinking about how this lecture is organized. What are the main topics? Is this an example of previous information, or new information? Why did the professor add in this new slide?
• If the figures seem obvious, practice drawing them yourself
• Create pretend exam questions for yourself in the margins.
• Re-organize the material as a concept map
• Think globally about the material. What words are you seeing in this lecture that were in previous lectures? Circle these words to help you find them later. Use space in margins to list what other parts of lecture you remember seeing these words.
• Use the textbook as an additional resource to broaden your understanding and fill in gaps. If you understand the lecture, you don’t need to read before class.

 

Laptop Users

Paper Users

Turn off wifi. If you find yourself prone to digital distractions during the “boring” parts of lecture, switch to paper. Learn to take notes on your figures. PC users will benefit from learning how to use Microsoft OneNote, or export all the slides as jpg images, and paste them into your word processing program so you can refer to them. Mac laptop users have fewer “notetaking” software options, so learn how to nimbly write on slides in PowerPoint. Add a notebook to your repertoire so you can draw out figures after typing notes

If you find notetaking on the printed powerpoints to be too constricting, switch to handwritten notetaking. It will keep you alert Draw pictures from each slide

 

 

Are you taking good notes?

Finally, use the following list to work through whether you are taking good notes. Just to keep driving this point home – taking notes in lecture is about learning while in class, rather than capturing everything that is said or shown.

Recognize confusions

• Have you marked the confusing parts of each lecture?
• Did you mark the words you don’t know the definition of?

Understand organization

• Can you make a 1-page lecture outline from memory?
• Can you list the main three topics when you walk out of class?

See the big picture

• Do you recognize and tag terms seen in multiple lectures?
• Could you explain a figure from lecture to someone else?