Lectures are one of the most common ways to convey academic information yet they are extremely difficult for many students, even those of average or above average ability, to follow and make meaning from. Imagine the following scenario: you are invited to a friend's birthday party, and that friend asks you to stand near the door to collect gifts and cards, which you are to set on a small table. Soon, the table is covered in gifts, but people continue to arrive with more. You don't know where to put them, so you hold them until you can't hold anymore, but still people continue to hand you gifts. Eventually, you drop several on the floor, where they either break or roll away. Students in lecture classes may feel like you would at this imaginary party. Often, information comes at them so quickly they only have time to safely "store" a small portion of it, while the rest gets lost. When information enters the brain, it goes into short-term memory. If you know your psychology, you might be aware that short-term memory can hold about 7 items (concept or terms) at once. Once the number of items in short-terms memory exceeds 7, the brain has to decide what to do with the information-it either gets kicked out of short term memory where it is likely to be forgotten, or, if it is processed and encoded, it moves into long-term memory, where it needs to be for students to really use it.
Biologically, most students aren't wired to follow lectures. Lectures are very rarely limited to only 7-9 concepts, and even the best lecturers often talk too fast for students. In addition to having to make sense of the lecture itself, the student has to quickly process the information, and then distill it down so he or she knows what to write. Students who struggle with notetaking usually make one of three choices when the listen to lectures 1) they try to write word for word everything the professor says, 2) they only write down what the professor writes on the board 3) they write down a jumbled mish-mash of words which make little or no sense.
As if things weren't tough enough, students often enter college with very little notetaking experience. Very few students are ever formally taught how to take notes. Also, according to Don Bligh, who wrote "What's the Use of a Lecture?" students' troubles increase when the lecture is full of unfamiliar terms or vocabularly. Bligh's research suggests that if a professor speaks in long sentences with clauses, students are less likely to pick out main ideas.
What Can You Do?
One of the best ways to turn students into successful notetakers is to do whatever you can to prepare them for your lectures, and then give them concrete strategies to implement. Just as you would be able to better follow a complicated book or movie if you'd read a preview first, students will be better able to follow a lecture if they have some idea ahead of time what it will cover. Here are some suggestions:
- Be very clear about the role of the lecture in your course.
A hand-in-hand lecture closely follows the reading and is designed to make sure students understand a book or chapter's main points. A jumping-off-point lecture covers material that is not in the book, but relates to it in some way. Students typically follow hand-in-hand lectures fairly well, but they will complain bitterly about jumping-off-point lectures. They say, "The lecture has absolutely nothing to do with our book, so I have no idea what is important and I have no idea how to take notes or even what to write down." If you have jumping-off-point lectures, explain why to your students. Your lecture choices may be glaringly obvious to you, but they aren't to the students.
One professor broke his large lecture class into small groups once a week to do an activity he hoped would help them understand the lecture's main points. He anticipated that these activities would be enjoyable for students and help them "get" the main ideas. When he asked for written feedback, he was surprised when students wrote repeatedly that they had no idea why they were doing these "stupid and time wasting activities." This professor didn't want to abandon these activities, so he started preparing a written statement to hand to students at the beginning of each on. It said, in effect, "Today's activity will help you understand concepts X, Y and Z. By the time the class is over, you will hopefully have a better understanding of the material we covered in chapter 15, pages 500-512." He polled students again later in the semester. Students wrote those sheets were helpful for them and they suddenly knew what they were "supposed to get out of the activities." Preparing a daily statement might not be feasible, but using some method appropriate to your course, consider telling students ahead of time what lectures will be about.
Just because you state, when classes begin, what the purpose of your lecture is, don't assume students will remember. Repeat your goals and rationale often.
- Get feedback about your lecture.
Ask students to e-mail you or tell you how your lecture relates to the reading. Consider breaking up your one-hour lecture into six 10 minute chunks. After each chunk, have a mini review.
Bligh suggests that one of the most helpful things a lecturer can do is occasionally stop talking. Giving students two or three minutes to catch up every 10 minutes or so will allow them to sort through their notes, fill in missing parts and write down questions. Students will be unlikely to know how to use these brief breaks, so you may have to be directive at first about how to utilize them.
- Offer notetaking workshops.
Many faculty complain that students never visit them during office hours, but you might solve this problem by inviting students in to get feedback from you or their peers about their notes. Such workshops will give you an opportunity to see what your students are taking out of the lecture, evaluate what kind of skills they have and make recommendations. You can also save good examples of notes which you can show to less skilled notetakers as models.
- Help students develop a system of abbreviations.
Students are often terrified to abbreviate terms for fear of forgetting them. Suggest to students that they use the inside of their notebook cover as a glossary for abbreviations. For example, if a long word like Parliament is frequently used in your course, suggest students use the abbreviation P. On the inside of their notebook cover, they can write P = Parliament.
- Encourage students to come prepared.
Professors usually write lectures assuming that their students read relevant material ahead of time, but students often save reading until shortly before an exam. Tell students that you expect them to have their reading done before they come to class, and be specific about exactly what material your lecture will cover.
- Refer students to the College Success Note Taking link on our website.